If I knew then what I know now…
You can say that about a great many things, but today, I’m referring to PORTRAITS. When you are young or have young children, you don’t often think about freezing a moment in time. Trust me – in what seems like a split second, your babies turn into adults who live far away and you and your spouse reach the stage in life where you no longer like looking at current photos of yourself. (It’s too depressing.)
I’m not talking about photographic portraits. While they are nice to have, they are not in the same league as an oil painting by a skilled artist. A portrait painting becomes an heirloom to be valued for generations. Hanging in my childhood home are individual oil portraits of my sisters and me each at the age of three. A doting uncle had them commissioned from photographs when he was stationed in Germany and my parents treasured them. I always felt my children were the most beautiful children on the planet and an oil painting of them would have been a permanent reminder of that beautiful stage of our lives and theirs. If I only knew then what I know now.
At The Art Shop, we’ve had the great pleasure of commissioning portraits for several clients with various amazing artists. The end results are beyond your typical portrait with the subject in front of a fuzzy background. These portraits are instead incredible works of art with our clients as the subjects in beautiful surroundings – a favorite room in their home or in their beautiful garden. They were thrilled with the results.
These photos are from a recent portrait commission for a client in Michigan. Artist Richard Johnson, who does amazing work, is working on the photo shoot with the client in their backyard garden.
And take a look at the video we created from this portrait commission by Johnson. (above)
Think about investing in a portrait that will pay you dividends every day of your life as you walk past it and that will be an heirloom to be valued for generations.
