This is a portrait of a 1 year old little cutie pie. Look at his tiny face with his cute little nose and those tiny hands with so smooth skin… “Sometimes the little things take up the most room in a heart”

  I never had any experience in drawing a little baby. It is totally different proportions. The area above the eyes for babies is greater in length than the area below and the distances between the nose, the lips, and the chin  get shorter as well.However, while the distances are smaller, the size of  the features stay the same. This makes the eyes look larger on a child’s face than on an adult, when really, it’s only the distances between them getting smaller that creates the effect.

Another challenge was to get the skin tone close to the flesh tone of the original photo. It couldn’t be too pink at the same time beige/yellowish color made the look unhealthy. So I had to make a combination of pale rosy color and pale peach.

If you see the original photo of birthday boy, there is one element missing. What kind of party without a birthday wish with a candle on a cake?  I had to add it to the scene to complete the story. A muffin seems to be a good choice considering how little guy is at the table.

I loved the color palette of the table cloth in the background and decided to leave it as it creates a nice feisty mood.

When the portrait was done, I asked the mom of the baby if she can recognize her son, if there is any resemblance between portrait and a photo. She said it just looked like him.

For period of time I got so attached to the painting of this baby so I couldn’t let myself to separate us. So I had to make myself a copy. Now this portrait is in my studio. Now our family have a new baby.