from photo to painting

Every once in a while you snap a picture that is just awesome, right? Among the thousands of candid shots on my phone there are a handful of really great ones. The picture below is one of those.

In August 2019 we were on vacation with all four kids when I snapped a pic of all of them jumping off a dock. I love so many things about this photo — the carefree image of childhood, the idea of jumping as a group into the unknown, and, of course, my memory of watching overjoyed kids hurl themselves into a freezing alpine lake. This photo makes me so happy.

In fact, both of us loved the photo so much that we wanted to turn it into a painting. After artist Mike Warren was featured on Nesting with Grace, I contacted him and asked him if he would replicate this photo as a painting.

This project was pricey, but after giving it a lot of thought we decided to go for it and use part of our tax return to cover the cost. And the end result was much better than I’d imagined!

We wanted to highlight the painting with light from a sconce, but we didn’t want to run electricity to the sconce because we’re planning to redo the living room soon. Instead, we added a puck light using this tutorial. (The puck lights recommended in the tutorial come with a remote control, which makes it easy to turn the lights on and off.)

I know we’ll always treasure this painting! I’m so glad we took the plunge and reached out to Mike Warren.