Starting a new portrait -- first of three views (from the right)

Starting a new portrait

When a subject is within an hour’s drive of Cincinnati, I usually like to just get the street address and take my own photos. This collector warned me that the trees and foliage obscure this home this time of year but didn’t have any winter (no foliage) photos I can use for reference.
My paintings benefit when I’m able to actually visit the property myself, as I did in this case. I start by making pencil sketches of the house anyway, so I shot the reference pictures I needed to be able to do this.
Usually I do a few drawings to familiarize myself with the lines of the house. In this case, I have drawings of the home viewed from the right side, from the left side and head on. In my drawings, I often vary the distance from the subject too.
In addition to informing me about a home before I paint it, these drawings are useful for talking to the collector about preferences like left, right or center, how much landscape setting to include around the house, and emphasis, downplaying or outright removal or changing of certain features like trees, flowers, architectural details etc.
This is the first of my three sketches of a single home. Tune in next week to see the other two, as I engage the collector in discussions about the painting I’ll do of this family home as a birthday gift for her mom.