Destroy that precious thing

I took a small hog brush and some black thinned with turps, and made these corrections. I'm ready for a cup of coffee now. I think I've nailed him. The trick now is not to loose him again in the re-painting.

An hour of frustration, then I squinted and obliterated all detail with blocks of tone. I'm finding that using a brush for each shade keeps me making decisions. I need to stop 'drawing' and keep on 'painting' if that makes sense?

Second sitting

First I took a good look at the photo I'm working from and drew in the corrections on my painting so far; the left eyebrow needed to be higher, the mouth - lower, the nose and far-cheek needed reconstructing, his shirt and corner of the chair needed dropping, and ear hole was too high. Also his skull needed correcting. Deep breath, at least now I could see my dad emerging from under all that gloop again.

Step 2 was to mix a new set of grays to work from, which took almost an hour.

God, I'm tense. A bit of Bjork 'Debut' any swirly-whirly dancing round the room should loosen me up.

Live from a photo

18.10 This is the outline of a tonal study I'm doing. I'll update this entry as I go tonight, so this is a live entry. But, it's from the photo of my dad, as in the earlier portrait in ink this week. Hence the title.

18.28 I have started laying in the five tones I pre-mixed. The exercise is one from the latest Artists & Illustrators Magazine, the first in a series in how to paint successful portraits.

18.46 Stop. I should have 5 clear, strong tones, but I've ended up with 6, and they're too close. So I have re-mixed 5 tones, and now I'm going to scrape back most of this canvas so far and start afresh. It's all for the good, I promise.

19.15 Okay, time for a break. I think there's too much paint on here so I'm going to tonk it back a bit. EEuw, nose is a funny shape and the mouth is too high up. How did that happen!

19.38 Okay, there's some corrections, but it's not finished. But I can't see the wood for the trees so I'll put it to bed until tomorrow.

Portrait Party Entry

Amy and I decided to enter a Portrait Swap. And because it's the site's first birthday they're having a bit of a competition.

Here are our entries. We decided to both work on the same pastel paper, using black and white ink pens, and 2 tones of grey brush pen. This way we worked using similar techniques, so that our drawing styles would show through when you compare the two portraits.

Here's Amy's art site in case any of you haven't visited yet. Give her loads of support (I know you will). It has taken me months to bully her into starting to draw again and her Blog is her only way of reaching out to other artists.

Change of plans...

Instead of my spending the afternoon painting, hubby offered to take care of the kids so that I could go to the Laing Gallery in Newcastle to see this year's BP Portrait Awards.

My favorite there I was a lively and engaging study by Perdita Sinclair called 'Aileen'. The two others I loved were 'The King of Spain' by Diarmuid Kelley, and 'Christa' by Jaime Valero Perandones. They're all on the National Portrait Gallery site, as I've just found.

Photo-realism was popular, but some left me cold. The winning portrait was a large painting of an elderly gentleman. Although this one could also be descibed as photo-realism, rather than just reproducing what was seen the artist also put a lot of atmosphere and feeling into the painting. It wouldn't have been my personal choice to win, but I don't disagree passionately with the decision.

It didn't make me want to seek out more of his works though, like the Perdita Sinclair one did.

A Portrait of a Friend

Actually, he's a friend of my dad, from Eire. But when I first met him, apart from his gentlemanly demeanour, I immediately thought he was a lovely specimen. To paint.

Well, he kindly obliged to be photographed by my dad, and here are some preparatory sketches I've done so far. I also did an ink drawing, but I'd mailed it to my dad before it occurred to me to photograph it for this blog. Because I'm a nincompoop!

It struck me to do some lino prints from the studies. None of the photos have inspired me to do an oil painting. Maybe when I next visit Eire I'll ask him if he'd pose for me in his work van, or in dad's woodwork shop. He strikes me as a great 'Poseidon' maybe.

Back in the saddle again

As you can see I started sketching again, sat in front of a huge mirror and drawing me drawing. I feel like I've broken through the barrier I'd built up out of nowhere. But it was a real barrier. Thank you for all your support, it made a huge impact on me.