A House Portrait from Seattle, Washington
by Jennifer Skopp
Jennifer Skopp was commissioned to create this Watercolor House Portrait for a family that lives in a suburb of Seattle. The owner wanted Jennifer to include his family in the painting. He provided her with an excellent photograph of the house with his family for reference.
This is a one level house that is L Shaped. The garage is closer to the street. As it goes back, the house makes a right turn. The bottom 2/3 of the house and garage have horizontal, dark gray siding. The top 1/3 has beige vertical siding. The garage door is white. There is a pitched roof on top of the garage and another on top of the residential part of the house. Three concrete steps lead to the white front door that has one black wrought iron railing on the left side. The front of the house has four double sets of windows, with two on each side of the front door.
There is a long garden with a border of medium size stones and perennials on the right side of the garage. It goes back to the front of the left side of the house. The front part of the long garden comes to a point as it juts out beyond the garage. The path that leads to the front door and the driveway merge in front of the long garden. There is another smaller garden in front of the right side of the house and a hanging, flowering plant to the right of the front door.
The owner was opened to a more stylized version of the clouds and trees in the background. Jennifer painted big, puffy, circular clouds. She depicted the tall Evergreens with varying heights, but uniform in shape. The large, round top of a tree was painted with exaggerated points around the outside edge. Even though Jennifer was given the liberty to stylize the trees and clouds in the background, the owner wanted her to paint the exact type of shrubs and flowers that grew in the garden. He provided Jennifer with a photo that was labeled with the type of flowers and their location. Their pet cat was not in the original photo with the house and family. The owner quickly photoshopped the cat in the photo and Jennifer made it look like the cat was really posing with the family.
