All posts tagged Commissioned Portrait Series

Click the image below to see the gallery:

or you can go to ollibird.com/portraits

So just a note or two about the gallery.  We realized that as this portrait series has proven to have legs, it needed its own way to showcase them beyond this blog, so I think it was Alma, (I am giving her credit here), who thought: Why not a museum, with a gallery dedicated to the portraits.  SO I said: Yeah, and I can add on as I do new ones, like I can do like archways and other cool elements as the collection grows.  I also decided I wanted to have links to the portrait subjects themselves if applicable, so if you click their name card, it may take you to their site or blog.  So please enjoy it and comment with any suggestions or ideas you can think of for things I can add in the future.  Who knows, you may just be featured in the Ollibird Portrait Gallery, it’s pretty much as good as the Guggenheim.

{Mike}

So here are the latest batch of portraits.  I really enjoyed working on all these.  I will spare you a lot of the details of the approaches to each one and just mention briefly who each portrait is of.

This is Annie.  She is the art star behind this Etsy store.  I really like her work and personal style. Check her stuff out. She also has a great blog called Ultra Vroom, that I subscribed to before I ever knew she existed, just because I dug her style. Thanks Annie.

This is Nicole.  Many of you are familiar with Nicole if you read our blog as she basically handed us a lot of readers from her blog.  We thank you for that Nicole, and I hope you enjoy being immortalized by another of your business partners. (this is Alma’s take….it’s tiny but you get the idea)

This is a couple I have never met before named Allen and Shelly.  They recently celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary and this portrait was given to them as a gift.  I was told they quite liked it.  I found this one the trickiest because they are now 20 years older than what was depicted in the image I worked from, but I tried to ignore that and focus on them as a couple in general.  I was also told to include the number 20 somehow, so hopefully you can see how that was done.  It was nice to do another portrait of a married couple.  Congratulations to Allen and Shelly.

This is Mari, whom I also have never met, (are you getting the picture I am not just doing portraits of friends?)  Well, Mari is now a friend after all the correspondence we took part in, as I did this portrait for her upcoming featured seller interview that will be on the front page of etsy.com next week.  Which I think is kinda huge, and exciting.  Here is her store link.  I also commissioned work from her, as she made me a custom Moleskine-style herringbone iPad case and a matching perfectly minimalist herringbone iPad bags, so that like Alma, I can have an excuse to have my iPad with me at all times, and yes, that now means I am the proud owner of a man purse, or murse if you like.  Anywyay, she did an amazing job.  Thanks again Mari!

…and last but certainly not least, a portrait of my dear Alma, who is currently in NYC at BlogHer.  We decided to make a promotional card to get the word out about our little idea here.  We talked it over and realized it would be funny to illustrate the idea for those potentially interested by having the person handing you the card, have their portrait on the card itself.  The card says something about these portraits being great for “about me” sections instead of a photo, or also as a engagement announcement picture, or just as a gift in general.  Here’s hoping she meets Julia Roberts there or something.

{Mike}

So, since working on Katie and Dave’s portrait a couple months ago, I have had the opportunity to work with some great subjects on a variety of portraits. I am telling you, I love this work. It is exactly what I have been wanting to do for years and I am excited for this to continue. I think I enjoy this even more than my life long goal of being an animator, if you can believe that. I am just crazy about the portrait as a genre in art. I think portraits can say more than any other type of work.

Here are the portraits I’ve done so far. And if you make it to the end of the post, you’ll also be able to see a process video, where I recorded my screen while creating a digital portrait.

Here’s Katie and Dave, who you may have already seen. Katie and Dave included this portrait in their wedding announcements for a unique approach. The response to this was very positive.

This is Abbie Breedt, who is one of Alma’s clients. Her sites will be launching soon, so expect to see a little more of her work soon.

The above portrait is of Megan, who is rather classically pretty. It was up to me what direction to go with this portrait, and it was suggested that Megan sort of resembled an ancient Greek look, and I agreed—either that or a Western European, Madame X kinda vibe, so I kept all that in mind when I styled the background and overall feel.

This portrait is of Jon and Dan Heder, yes THAT Jon Heder. They submitted a photo with this composition, and I loved the concept and the fun nature of the work. It was interesting to focus on the differences and similarities between these identical twin brothers as I worked on this portrait.

This last portrait is of Sarah, who is the wife of Dan Heder and whose great hair made the portrait even more fun. For a different approach, I decided to record my screen during this portrait to give you as much insight as possible into the process of digitally painting. I deviated from my standard process a little in doing this, since all of the portraits I do are done by pencil first, and then digitally painted or colored. But so that you could see the whole thing come together, I drew this one digitally (using my Wacom tablet) from start to finish.

[youtube]SZEdPv-dQSY[/youtube]

As I said, I really love doing this work. If you are interested in having a digital portrait done for yourself or as a gift for someone you know, send me an email at mike {at} ollibird [dot] com. My prices generally range from about $400 to $650 (lower for one person, higher for two, for example) but I can give you a quote on your specific project if you describe it to me. You may be interested to know that I release all rights to you to use this artwork both personally and commercially. I provide you with a web-ready version and a high-res print-ready version, and I can also ship prints of your portrait to you. (I don’t charge big prices for the prints—just enough to cover the cost of the print and shipping, and a little extra for my time in packaging everything up and sending it off to you.)

And in the meantime, keep checking our blog for updates on the next batch of portraits I’m working on.