Tíos Chinos Portrait, acrylic on canvas, 42"x36", 2021

El Valle, Panamá

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This portrait is very special and important because it's a portrait of my dear Chinese uncle and aunt.  My uncle was one of the first people to ever buy a painting from me, and he was always really supportive of me.  He unexpectedly passed away in 2019​ from a heart condition, and left all of us brokenhearted.  I... don't know if this information goes here and I might be coming back to delete it later...

This painting is the largest of this series, at 4'x3'6".

I left a lot of the exposed moody underpainting and made a background with a textury light gray and a top layer of iridescent pink/green which you can only appreciate on site.  His tie and her dress both have a top layer of golden paint.  Her dress has straps made with layered iridescent drops of different colors.  Her jewelry also has layered paint for texture and vibrancy, and this time I felt inspired to embroider it with beads and long tubular beads and shiny thread, which suddenly made me realize it would be really silly to not make special beads for this, so I did make special lampwork beads for this jewelry in light pink, with goldstone details. 

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See detail shots below and FLASHING gifs. 

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Tap or click on the images to enlarge.