Mother's Day...

I recently painted this in Photoshop for my wife on Mother's Day. It's from a photo that I had taken a year or so ago, and I figured she'd like it as my daughter doesn't usually sit still long enough for cuddles anymore :¬(

I avoided painting on top of the photo, as I find you usually end up in a sort of 'no man's land' struggling to capture the image underneath whilst actually obscuring it! Instead, I placed the main photo and a few detail enlargements to one side [on my left monitor], and then painted the picture on my main monitor, as if I'm referencing a life model setup.

I consciously tried to keep it fairly graphic [although the hands got a bit slick], and the lighting and composition is slightly different from the source image.