The Dress (Lovell)

by Godfrey J. Ellis – 14×18 Acrylic March 2023

I am used to missionaries showing up for a photo shoot with elaborate flowered patterns, but this is the first time I had a nightmare black dress with green abstract blobs that obscured shadows and shapes. Worse, the background was also black with green abstract blobs and the tree was brown with abstract blobs. I had to get creative to pull this one out. Muting the background helped a lot. I also made a rough oval, painted the bark as linear shapes rather than spotty dots, and put in the extra leaves in the front, all to accent her face better. You can decide if you like my choices.

Below are a couple of pictures when she picked it up. You might notice that the hair is naturally straight – she had curled it especially for the photo and portrait.

This was a complicated painting as the six photos below show: