Big, Happy Family

Yesterday's venture was successful, so I will include another painting and explanation again.

The very lovely Mrs. Harris (to the right) has eight children. They fill at least two pews. In the photograph above, they occupy three.
Not only are the children beautiful, but they are also well-mannered, perhaps the most well-mannered children I have ever seen. The older children, like the young man pictured in the front, help with the younger ones.
The Harris family survived Hurricane Katrina. They now live in Richmond and are members of Pilgrim Baptist Church.
I named this painting “Big, Happy Family” because they appear to be one. I also wanted to express the larger concept of Pilgrim Baptist Church as a big, happy family.

In this painting, I made a number of changes from the photograph, particularly with color, but I also left out one or two figures in the background. Color and patterns really made the difference. The woman in deep pink in the background was actually wearing red--a more orange-red. I lightened it and moved it more toward a violet-red. I really liked the color. I wanted more of it. Mrs. Harris wore beige. That did not work. Something huge was missing. So I put her in a similar color to the woman in the background. Still, it wasn't right. So I looked at the patterns on the boy's shirt--the plaid--and the pattern on the other woman's jacket and decided that the figure of Mrs. Harris also needed a pattern. I love stripes so I gave her white pin-stripes.

It was almost right now, but not quite. The figure behind Mrs. Harris wore a grey-beige suit. To balance the blue of the boy in the front, as well as the woman directly behind him, I dressed her in blue--a kind of green-blue. I subsequently altered a number of other colors in the background, until I achieved the kind of harmony I sought.

I guess it worked because this piece won first place at Art Works--in the April show.