portrait wall beginnings

I’m not sure why I never posted this after the holidays, but I thought about it this weekend since Father’s Day is approaching. I find that buying gifts for my husband is tricky sometimes. He has lots of interests, but not the kind of hobbies that lend themselves to new gear purchases. He’s very tall and thin, and typically has to order clothing to fit, so it’s also not really easy to spot a nice shirt and pick it up for a gift. I’m actually excited this year about our Father’s Day gifts that the girls and I picked out, but I can’t talk about those here quite yet. But I thought I’d share what we gave him for Christmas this past year.

M spent a ton of time last year working on the stair hall that goes through the center of our house – painting, updating light fixtures, final fittings on the stair treads, etc. On the middle floor we have a great wall for hanging portraits, and once some of the other projects start wrapping up, I’d like to start building that. I thought a neat way to fill it would be to commission portrait work from different artists each year. I started with Paul Ferney last year, and commissioned these two pieces.

I chose a picture of each girl, and this time I focused on our favorite place – the beach – and two activities that make me think of M and the way he loves to play at the beach with each girl. The underwater shot of E is one that M took while goofing off in the pool, flipping and splashing and diving. I love the light and everything about it. (I also loved Ferney’s beach paintings, so I knew this was a good match.)

The one of F makes me think of the quieter moments at the beach – the way M gets the umbrellas positioned just right for shade, and the way we sit under them and relax. This particular photo of F is the start of a colossal city of sand that M helped her build all afternoon. It had roads and bridges and tunnels and towers. It was one of my favorite afternoons ever, just watching them work, chasing the shade as the sun moved through the sky.

I’ve got plenty of ideas for future pieces – some local artists, some distant ones. (And maybe a few in our own house!) If you’ve got someone you’d recommend, please let me know in the comments. I’d love to take a look at their work.