Working in great secrecy on a beautiful gift for a mother of four sons on the occasion of her 40th birthday. How fun and exciting is that!
More than a month before the birthday, the father/client came to me with two photos of the four boys. If I could make a watercolor of his boys on a large canvas. Oh yes, and we also have a thing with a four-leaf clover, you can understand why…
In consultation with the client, we decided on four separate 3D canvases of 60x60cm each, enclosed in a special frame of approx. 128x128cm. So get started!
Gerrit Hoogebeen, alias De Inlijsteraar, made the special baking frame for me; Later I painted and varnished it myself. You normally do watercolors on paper and then it goes behind glass. But it can also be done on canvas. First prime with ‘watercolour ground’ and then watercolor in layers (from light to dark): ochre, carmine red, ultramarine blue and finally turn on the dark and light parts and make some corrections here and there. Between working on the portraits I applied my ‘signature’ in the background in which a cloverleaf has been masked in each canvas. Once framed, this results in the complete ‘four-leaf clover’.
A painting does not go behind glass, so – after the client’s approval – I applied a special watercolour varnish layer for protection. And then framed it. Before mounting in the frame I walked around the dining table with skewers and felts to keep the cloths in place while drilling and screwing (I was lying on the floor myself).
In short; it was a bit of a sweat, but the result is rewarding: four portraits in watercolor on canvas in a special frame!
And… the mother – now 40 years old – is also very happy with the result!
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