About the Artist: Sue Fernandes has helped hundreds of parents capture their newborn babies through her one-of-a-kind pastel portraits and pencil sketches. Sue is a professionally trained artist with a diploma in Creative Arts (1981). She previously worked as a professionally trained midwife and started her now flourishing career as an artist in 1987 when she began painting newborn babies at the Royal Women’s Hospital, Brisbane.
Sands: Sue works with and through the Stillbirth and neonatal death charity (Sands), creating beautiful portraits of babies who died either before birth or shortly thereafter. Sue’s work in this area enables the parents of these babies to own a portrait that they can display in their home. She has received the highest praise from all parents who have commissioned a portrait by her and is very much aware of the comfort her work brings to them.
Creating the Portraits: Sue creates her portraits from photos. If no photo is available, Sue can create a “symbolic” portrait using photos of both parents. She can also produce portraits of other family members either separately or together with the baby. Of course, any skin discoloration or bruising is omitted from the portrait and natural skin tones are displayed.
About the Medium: Sue works in either pastels – a soft chalk medium that enhances the natural skin tones of her small subjects – or with pencil to create her portraits. Unless otherwise requested, single-subject pencil sketches are produced on size A4 paper and single-subject pastel portraits on 35cm x 25cm paper. All paper is of the highest quality.
Contacting the Artist: Sue can be reached by telephone, post or email at her studio and home in Australia and she welcomes your questions and special requests:
Address: Sue Fernandes, “Applegum”, Merriangaah, Bombala, NSW 2632
Pastel Portraits and Pencil Sketches of your Baby
