Wedding Hat

What does it take to be brave enough to wear a hat?

Isn't she lovely!  And best of all, she's not some random lovely lady, she's my very own sister.  I always kind of thought of her as my own Sister Maria (from The Sound of Music).  Maybe that was because she took care of me a lot when I was little or because I always thought she looked like Julie Andrews.


I experimented with several new challenges while painting this portrait.  
First of all, it was the first time I had tried combining two pictures.  In the original photograph, she was standing  in a department store - clothes racks didn't seem as pleasant as the lush tropical backdrop from the actual wedding. 

It was also the first time I'd dabbled in removing information - who wants to see reading glasses or price tags!    The last thing is that this was the first adult I'd tried to put on the canvas.  Although I like the finished product, I discovered that this was not my calling.