Creating a couple's portrait (Patreon)

One of the best thing about this past year has been the fact that I live near my best friend and producing partner, Sarah Tops. Since the pandemic started I've seen her at least once a week, either outside or on google chat and it has kept me sane.

Once my GTA job stopped booking again, Johnny and I decided to pod up with Sarah and her partner Dick Move, since now none of us were leaving the house except for groceries and the occasional walk. Also the weather was making outdoor hangouts increasingly uncomfortable.

So we got to have xmas together! And thank god because otherwise I would have been extremely depressed. It was the first christmas that I didn't spend with my mothers and it's my favorite holiday to spend with them. I miss them a lot on normal days so not being with them for xmas really hurt. Throughout december I'd remember random things like "I won't have a stocking this year" and it would feel like a knife twist in my heart.

But podding up meant that we could spend the day with other people we loved, we could have a fancy meal, the day could feel special.

It also meant more people to exchange presents with!

I asked them for their wishlists and I was extremely touched when Sarah said that she and Dick would love an original art piece by me.

I probably could have drawn them, like, a shakespearean hotdog but, of course, my brain didn't think that was ENOUGH! It must encapsulate THEM! The things they love, their love for each other, my love of them, life, the universe, and everything!

Because, you know, that's a thing you can do.

Eventually I scaled down to a portrait of them, and what I think makes their relationship so great. Sarah and Dick are such a perfect marriage of complements. She's great a business and planning, he's an incredibly talented artist. He's an endless font of ideas, she's an unstoppable force of action. Without him, Sarah would live in a disaster apartment and eat only grilled cheese sandwiches. Without Sarah, Dick would have 12 low paid jobs, five roommates, and never finish anything. They are a great support for each other and they have a hell of a lot of fun together while they're at it.
They share a lot of interests so it took me a while to figure out what would be a good way to portray them. Superheros?

Some other nerdy thing?

There was a lot to choose from

But I really wanted to show an ideal relationship, an epic romance. I kept thinking of arthurian love stories and waterhouse paintings. But they don't really fit the roles of Knight and Damsel. And that is such an unbalanced power dynamic that it really doesn't work as an image of an ideal relationship. 

But not all the women in arthurian legends are passive, many of them are sorceresses or unspecified supernatural somethings and I could see that being a fitting metaphor for Dick. 

He creates food and music that feels magical. As a performer he shapeshifts his look, his personality, his voice. He is more internal, a creature of hearth, home, and mysterious inner worlds. 

Sarah is outgoing, a creature of action, a conqueror of any challenge she sets herself. She fights for and protects the people she loves. She's not butch, like, at all. But I could easily see her as a knight that goes out every day to slay the dragon of capitalism.

Of course, getting the likeness was hard so I kind of cheated and traced the faces from photos. Thank god for my ipad, otherwise I'd be working on this till the end of time.

I wanted to give the background a bit of a yin/yang sense but the Waterhouse style called for a more realistic and detailed background. Which is good because I think the yin/yang looks much better as just a subtle suggestion.

It's not perfect but I think it's pretty good. And their faces when they saw it were probably my favorite part of christmas this year.