The Gift of Graphics

Most people can’t afford to have a portrait painted but I just learned of a nifty alternative: canvas printing.  (And if you try to get a portrait done on the cheap, you may be sorry.  A friend of mine had an oil portrait of her daughter done that looks frankly awful.  And at that point, what are you going to do?  Stiff the artist?  There’s no point in making him re-paint it – he presumably did his best and it just wasn’t good enough.  So you’re stuck.)  When you combine canvas printing with the effects in Photoshop or other graphic editors, you can end up with something really nice and very affordable.  So now I’m thinking about all the ways to use this.  My son in law is being deployed to Iraq soon – I could give my daughter a nice, framed portrait of him.  My wedding anniversary, my mother’s birthday… Looks like 2010 is going to be the Year of the Portrait in my family.