by Godfrey J. Ellis – Oct 2019 acrylic 12×12 One of my grandsons is Samuel Godfrey Ellis – I like to call him S. Godfrey. Anyway, I loved how he and Sparky the dog made this eye-to-eye connection despite the poor dog’s cataracts! It seemed to tell a story. S. Godfrey is a basketball fan […]
Category: Portraits
Sarah Meets the Eiffel Tower (Ellis)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – Oct 2019 acrylic 12×16 When my wife suggested I paint my granddaughter, Sarah, from the crooked snapshot below, I honestly thought she was crazy. “Are you joking?!” First, the composition was all wrong. It would require a tall skinny canvas. Second, her shirt seemed impossible with all that white and […]
Leggings in the Canyon (Ellis)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – 12×16 Acrylic Oct 2019 This portrait was a Christmas gift for my precocious and full-of-life granddaughter, Sadie. It was based on a photo taken during a visit to Superior Canyon in the Tonton National Forest in Arizona (see below). I was concerned not only about the rocks of the cliff […]
Reflecting (Redle)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – 8×10 Acrylic Oct 2019 The painting captures our friend, 80-year old Jim Redle, reflecting on a discussion that was going on. I took the photo without him even realizing I had taken of him. We gave the painting to his wife, Joan, on her birthday. It wasn’t my best work, […]
Pensive Moment
by Godfrey Ellis – 11×14 Acrylic Oct 2019 As she was on a walk with her father one morning, this lovely young girl (Jenna, one of my granddaughters) had a thoughtful moment. I thought the photo that her father, Braden, had snapped looked like a fashion model from a glossy magazine. I wanted to paint […]
The Kitty (Ellis)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – 11×14 Acrylic Oct 2019 One of my three granddaughters in Arizona was fun-loving Amy. Her favorite outfit was this kitty shirt and the floppy fur hood. The painting went very quickly. It essentially painted itself in one day – certainly the fastest I had done to that date. Merry said […]
Arizona Flower (Ellis)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – 12×16 Acrylic Oct 2019 My lovely granddaughter, Lucy, was becoming quite the young woman. I thought the photo of her back-lit in front of an Arizona tropical plant (see below) was striking and I foolishly thought I could capture that background. I could not. I almost gave up in frustration […]
Concentrated Reader (Ellis)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – 12×16 Acrylic Oct 2020 My grandson, Tyler, who was definitely NOT a reader, had to be forced or bribed to read even 20 minutes per day. On one visit to the family in Sacramento, I turned around in the car to catch a rare moment of him enjoying the old […]
My Dog, Sparky (Ellis)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – Sep 2019 and reworked Nov 2019 acrylic 12×16 This Christmas present for my granddaughter was one of the first true portraits I had painted in more than 30 years. As a result, it was frustrating to paint — I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Then, suddenly, her […]
The Playful Hat (Ellis)
by Godfrey J. Ellis – Sep 2019 acrylic 12×12 This sweet granddaughter was sitting in my shopping cart in Target on one of our trips down to Sacramento. Full of life and fun, she reached over and grabbed a hat off a display and put it on. It was so playful that I snapped a […]