This is my mom Mary. She is highly intelligent, compassionate, passionate and competitive. She loves games of all kinds and still plays Bridge today at 81. She has no fear of technology evident by her Apple Watch in this portrait. Not shown is the iPad she plays Bridge and Slots on.

She holds real cards in her hand. All of the other cards are hand drawn in pencil on card stock, then colorized in Photoshop. Each card back design is representative of things she loves, including her family members. The king of hearts pinned to her blouse is an illustration of my father whom she celebrated sixty years of marriage with this summer.

The finished portrait measures 28" x 22". The cards surrounding her are printed at actual size.

Hand cut blank cards were assembled with tape on a board around a low quality print of her photo. The only goal was to make it look as three dimensional as possible. The finished construction board was photographed with studio lights set up to cast strong shadows. The studio lit photo was used to build the Photoshop composite.

If you look close you can see that I used a different photo of her hands, Photoshopped into the photo of her head and shoulders for the final portrait.

I didn't know how many cards I would need when I started the assembly. After I finished the construction I went back and drew even more cards to fill it out. I didn't want anything repeated in the final composite other than the red and blue versions of the card backs.