Christa and Henry Portrait, digital painting of a mother and infant son, painted in Procreate with detailed crochet jacket texture and warm skin tones — Painterly Realism family commission by Shadowmyst Art.

Christa and Henry Portrait, Mother and Son — Commission

Name: Christa and Henry Portrait, Mother and Son — Commission
SKU: POPRNT0035
Rating: 5.00 (1 reviews)

Rated 5.00 out of 5 based on 1 customer rating

Christa and Henry a family portrait, Mother and son. A young mother, blue eyes, brown hair wearning a green blouse with black crochet jacket holding her blue eyed, blond toddler. Digital artwork displayed framed above a fireplace in a living room. — “Christa and Henry” a digital portrait displayed framed above a fireplace in a living room.

SKU: POPRNT0035 Categories: Completed Commissions, Portraits, Store Tags: Completed Commissions, Portraits

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Christa and Henry Portrait, Mother and Son — Commission.

Christa and Henry Portrait is a commissioned painting of a young woman and her son — a portrait of love and a mother’s devotion. Moments of shared happiness within a family pass quickly, and a portrait painting holds them still, offering a way to revisit that love and joy for years to come.

Artist’s Process:

Christa and Henry Portrait was painted in Procreate on a 13″ iPad Pro using the Apple Pencil Pro. This piece began with a detailed sketch of the subjects positioning them carefully on the canvas and mapping out every connection between the two subjects. The sketch was followed by color blocking each elements of both subjects to create a base for the building of the details. A multi-layer approach was utilized to build up the skin tones starting with the darker areas and building up to varying colors of the skin where it is affected by temperature, blood flow to the skin, and lighting effects on the figures.

Challenge:

Clothing and the material chosen for the portrait can present a challenge, as exemplified in this piece. The mother was wearing a sentimental jacket over her blouse, which was made of open-work crochet stitching in a solid black color.

To create this material in the painting, a detailed mapping of the crochet pattern over the subject’s figure was the initial step. Following the sketched map of the pattern, a specialty texture brush in Procreate, “Pandani” from the “Inking” section on full opacity, and varying sizes corresponding to the thread size in the pattern were used to draw the crocheted threads in a base color pass on a new layer. Multiple lines with this brush were required to create the different thread configurations in the pattern to follow the varied stitch characteristics within the pattern.

A new layer was added above, using the same brush in varying smaller sizes and opacity reduced to 50% to create a pass of dark grey added to sections of the threads in small strokes integrated with the black threads. These small strokes were increased and decreased in areas of the pattern to reflect light and shadow on the material and to give the black threads a three-dimensional appearance. Two additional layers were created above to add light grey and then almost pure white, painting them lightly and selectively where the light would shine on the fabric more intensely.

A final layer was created by duplicating the original black thread pattern layer. This layer, positioned beneath all the previous jacket layers, was color-changed using the Procreate “Adjustments” tool “Hue, Saturation, Brightness” to lighten the black slightly. This color-adjusted layer was then softened using the Gaussian Blur tool followed by reducing the layer opacity by 5% to create a very subtle drop shadow of the jacket pattern on the under blouse and the skin of the subject, defining the jacket as a separate element in the composition.

Subjects and Themes:

Christa and Henry Portrait — Mother and Son — Family Portrait — Maternal Bond — Commission — Character Study — Human Connection — CONTACT SHADOWMYST ART FOR COMMISSION INFORMATION

1 review for Christa and Henry Portrait, Mother and Son — Commission

Rated 5 out of 5

Christa Hinst – August 31, 2026

I absolutely love this beautiful portrait of my son and me. It captures such a sweet moment in our lives, and I’m so grateful to have this memory preserved in such a beautiful way.

There is something so special about seeing a cherished memory turned into a piece of art. Sharon did such a wonderful job capturing the tenderness of the moment, and the finished portrait is something I know I will treasure for many years to come. It truly makes me happy every time I look at it.

I’m so grateful for the care and talent that went into creating something that means so much to me.
- sowood – August 31, 2026
  
  Christa, Thank you so much for this lovely review! Painting this portrait of you and Henry came from deep in my heart and it was my pleasure to be give it to you to enjoy forever! It was a privilege that I treasure!