Twins 10th Portrait: Meghan Stratman Paper Fantasy
This portrait has been in the works for a very long time. My first piece in the #hkfamcollection from the amazing Meghan Stratman, was a Nancy Drew theme piece from a Spoke Gallery show. Next I grabbed a Margot Tannenbaum portrait that Stratman did for Spoke’s, annual Wes Anderson show (I miss this show.) I love this piece and it was hanging above Margot’s crib ever since she was born. I’ve wanted Meghan to do commission for us ever since I grabbed that Nancy Drew piece. Every time I reached out, her calendar was always swamped with so many shows lining up on her calendar. There was always truth to that because I kept seeing her work’s pop up in gallery shows, several times a year. And I am sure I only collect from a fraction of the galleries she works with.
Post COVID, Meghan and I finally connected and I was able to get on her calendar. YES! I didn’t want to let the opportunity pass, by getting just one piece. So I requested to do two individual pieces for the twins birthday portrait. She was concerned about timing, and I was willing to wait. If I am being completely honest, most of these commissions don’t get off the ground till shortly before or after the kids birthday. Gone are the days I started having conversation months or a year in advance. I used to be religious about posting about the portrait around the kids birthdays. Well, life happens and you say “YES” to too many things, and you can’t meet your own expectations.
Traicing paper for templates of the cut paper pieces.
If you are taking a second glance at the finished pieces, and wondering, is that is cut paper. Then you asked the correct question. I love it when artists develop their aesthetic using a non traditional materials or mediums. Right now, we have a handful of pieces by Meghan and this put us at 7 now in the collection. From the early sketches, you can see how Meghan kept with her character quality rendition of the twins. Then we started talking about the background for the twins. Initially I wanted to go the route of doing things the kids like in the background. Then I realized we’ve done that so many times before. During this conversation, the twins were in school and gushing about some of the books that they have binge reading. For Lochlan, it was Alcatraz vs. The Evil Librarian books and for Margot, it was the Withchlings series.
Traicing paper for templates of the cut paper pieces.
The final pieces came were finished and the twins are over the moon for these pieces. Their initial reaction was to how they looked like they were characters in a graphic novel. Both pieces turned out the amazing and even the coloring used in both pieces fit the twins personality. Both pieces are well worth the wait. It was exciting to see these pieces come to life. You can see from the progress of both pieces, it is a mathematical process and attention to detail is so important.