My daughter's digital painting begins

This is the first in a series of posts concerning an illustration I am doing of my youngest child. I have 4 children. For each I have taken photos of them at 1 year old. From these photos I have created a 16x20 drawing that are now framed in our living room. Each is as unique as the child illustrated in each frame. The first I did in white colored pencil on black board. The second I sketched on paper, scanned the sketches then used Gimp 2.6 to illustrate the colors into the scanned sketches. The third, I simply took the digital photos, composited and artified them. I did this during the stress of University schooling, so it turned out to be the least traditional.

Why?

Children grow up. Some turn out just fine. Some are complete angels into adulthood. But most, at the very least, go through a phase somewhere between 13 and 18 where they cause parents a great deal of stress and frustration. My hope is that having them as babies in my living room will remind me of that wonderful brief period of innocence. That, when the teen angst begins I will have a reminder of who they are deep inside, and hopefully avoid the anger when they make mistakes.

4th and final child

My youngest is now 2 years old. I've put off this final illustration due to the work and focus needed to finish up my Bachelor's degree at the U of U. Now that school is complete I hope to have this complete by my 10th anniversary this June.

The process begins

At the request of my wife I will do a gray scale image with a pencil-sketch feel to it. I chose to do an initial sketch on paper. My source for the sketches were photos I took of her at about one-year-old. I scanned the sketches into the computer. What you see above is the two scanned images composited together in Krita. Below are a couple detail images to give an idea the level of detail I will be seeking to achieve.