With Mother’s Day, graduation, summer weddings and Father’s Day just around the corner, Jessica King’s beautiful watercolor portraits make great gifts. By using photographs you provide and upload to her website, Jessica turns them into an 8.5” x 11” charming work of art.

Jessica King’s simple, elegant, watercolor portraits are a remembrance you and your family will treasure forever.

Jessica’s business started when she posted a couple of the watercolor portraits she’d done of her own children on Facebook, and her business has grown from there. She begins by scanning the photo, then doing a rendering of the photograph on her computer. Jessica then emails the client the rendering so they can see a black and white draft. The rendering gives clients a good idea what the finished portrait will look like and helps them choose the color they want Jessica to use on the watercolor. Jessica then does a pencil sketch of the outline of the picture and begins painting the shadows. Because Jessica’s producing a shadow silhouette, the original photograph needs to have even lighting: not too dark or too light. It’s the shadows that enable the features and the personality of the person to shine through.

“I don’t do super realistic shades and skin tones,” said Jessica. “The client picks a color and I usually use one color per image. Sometimes I will have a tiny bleed of another color, but it’s always married closely to the original color, like turquoise and aqua. Depending on the color the client chooses, it can be ethereal and light, or sometimes clients want something really sharp, and they choose a color like hot pink. I prefer the ones with softer colors. I think they’re more natural, and my esthetic is soft and sweet as opposed to the pop art looking colors.”

If you’re interested in having Jessica do a watercolor portrait from your photographs, visit her website shopdearjesse.com. If you want more information, email her, and she’ll be happy to talk with you about it. All of her charming portraits are on acid free paper. The price for an 8.5” x 11” is $75 for a single child, adult or pet, and $125 for two or more figures in the same photo. In addition to portraits, Jessica does birth and wedding announcements and has font sizes to choose from if you want to add words and dates. In addition to the portrait, Jessica will also sell her clients the original digital copy of the portrait.

Jessica King’s watercolor portraits are less expensive than a painting, and they’re a remembrance you and your family will treasure forever.