This painting was an interesting portrait commission. I was contacted in July 2012 by Mrs. Bergman who initially wanted me to do a painting live at the wedding ceremony. I explained to her that anything painted in so short a time would necessarily be very small and rather loose in appearance, given that an average wedding ceremony lasts only an hour. (I’m fast, but I’m not that fast). Adding to that the logistics of setting up in a church setting, and this was not my first choice. I offered to work from photographs, that she could send me. We decided that the couple would look for the ideal image among some of the candid shots taken at the event.

Several months passed, the wedding came and went, then the honeymoon, then time to look through the images taken. The couple decided on two images, one of them kissing, but they preferred to have the State Capital building in the background, instead of the red building that was in the original photo. Once I got the images in a large enough resolution, I began working in Photoshop to swap out the backgrounds and frame the composition appropriately for the 11″x14″ format they chose. From that I had the reference photo for the final painting.