by Godfrey J. Ellis – 14×18 Acrylic June 2021 This lovely young couple were married in 2019 and began a life together. We were at their wedding. One day I offered to paint their picture and took the reference photo below. The photos below show the stages of the painting. I didn’t mute my sketch […]
Category: Friends
Waving to China (Weiyin)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – Acrylic 20×24 May 2021 This lovely man and his 12-year-old son, Liu are wode peng you (my friends – see the characters on the lower right). The father was my Chinese teacher at Pierce College in 2004. The College brought him over from China (his wife had to stay behind […]
Sassy (Shoop)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – 14×18 Acrylic Dec 2020 This is the granddaughter of a friend of ours. She is the cutest little thing and grandpa is mighty proud of her. I painted this as a surprise gift for him – he didn’t expect it at all. Although all paintings have frustrating elements, this one […]
Golden Sunshine (Blume)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – Oct 2020 Acrylic 16×20 This lovely young 20-year-old girl is the daughter of Jeff, the friend for whom I painted another portrait of his wife. That one was called “Graduation Memories” and is on this website. He liked the portrait of his wife enough to commission this new portrait of […]
Trail Head (Johnston)
by Godfrey J. Ellis — 12×16 Acrylic Oct 2020 In return for significant help with putting in a new back lawn, I painted this man’s wife (see “By the Lake” on this website). He gave it to his wife as a gift. He wasn’t sure she liked it but, a few weeks later, she commissioned […]
The Bandanna (Garcia)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – 16×20 acrylic 2020 There is a Hispanic restaurant owner near where we live who has a little hole-in-the-wall place called, Don Garcia’s. In his restaurant, he has a huge, framed photo of him much younger in a cowboy hat and with his name, Don Garcia, splashed across the photo. He […]
Batman (Shingzing)
Godfrey J. Ellis – 12×16 Acrylic July 2020 Oliver 7 yrs and Alex 4, the two little boys next door, sit in front of our planter. They have the long hair that came with Covid-19. When I gave this to the family, Dad had given them a haircut. I said, “Do I need to change […]
By the Lake (Johnston)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – 12×16 acrylic 2020 This portrait was painted from a small, very dark, and somewhat fuzzy reference photo (see below). It was the one my friend liked, so… that’s the one we used. I wouldn’t want to do that again, because it made it very difficult. The goal in this portrait was […]
Graduation Memories (Blume)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – May 2020 Acrylic 12×16 My friend, Jeff, has helped us a great deal in the replacement of our front lawn and supplying the soil for the replacement of our back lawn. I wanted to do a painting for him – perhaps his wife or a grandchild. Instead, he wanted a […]
Powder Blue (Nies)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – 12×16 acrylic 2020 In this portrait of our friend Carol, I tried to strike a balance between realism of the wrinkles and flattery for the subject. I don’t know if I achieved the perfect balance but I tried. This was a difficult painting in many ways and I ran into […]