It’s been such a joy painting this adorable face – he made me smile throughout the process.

Unfortunately, despite visiting two different scanning shops and taking many, many shots over three days, this woefully poor photo is the best image I got, which doesn’t do it justice.

As predicted, the watercolour study has evolved to become the final piece; smaller portraits have their merit and I’m quite satisfied with the result.

A light touch and a soft palette of transparent colours was necessary to reproduce that wonderfully delicate freshness of the little man’s flawless, peachy-soft baby skin.  Greatly diluted, these watery colours were carefully built up in layers until I felt I’d ‘captured’ him enough to please his parents.

Despite intending to paint loosely, unless the main features are detailed, it’s difficult to achieve a proper likeness of the subject.  In an attempt to make it more ‘painterly’ some splashes were added and I purposefully tried to fade out at the edges so that he wasn’t overwhelmed by the business of his clothing.  I do like a slightly unfinished painting, but on this occasion, it was mostly due to the fear of messing it up with overworking.

Now all I need is to stop “Baby face, you’ve got the cutest little baby face” from playing on a continuous loop in my head.