Tag Archives: portrait

Of pets and sketches and being unbusy

With my studio still stuffed full with boxes of stuff from my late Dad’s estate, apart from making occasional sketches I’ve not been at all productive over the past 18 months. I completely underestimated the sheer physical amount of personal material I’d have to pick through and the ongoing, negative emotional impact that would have.  In truth, I’ve had neither the time nor inclination to get stuck into anything very much.

A new pet portrait commission…

Before I completely filled the studio, early in the year I started a new commission in alkyds, a pet portrait of a gorgeous Italian Spinone dog. As I needed to work from photos I’ve found my iPadPro remarkably useful, being able to zoom in and adjust the lighting to reveal structural detail at will.

At the moment this is on hold with my client’s blessing, but it is close to completion. Unfortunately at 70cm by 100cm it is rather large, and I’ll only be able to finish it once my studio’s clear again.

…and a Cornish break

At least my June holiday gave me time to settle and sketch. Here are a few 6″ by 8″ acrylic sketches from my visit to the Lizard peninsular in Cornwall.

And I’m off again in September. First to the Isles of Scilly for 1 week and then the lizard again for 2 weeks. A three week holiday! I won’t want to come back! My plein air kit will go with me of course.

I’m still undecided whether to take oils instead of my usual acrylics. So many advantages including extended drying time and retention of brush strokes. But after a few trial runs in the garden I really need to brush up. I seem to be very good at making panels of mud!

With things as they are at the moment it’s a lot less of a faff for me to upload a post to Facebook and Instagram than this blog as I can easily do it on the fly from my phone. So, i
f you’d like to see more frequent updates, please head on over and like my FaceBook page. 

Acrylic portrait of Ben almost complete

So, #portraitnovember the Twitter challenge has wrapped up for another year.  And my approach, to concentrate on completing a single acrylic portrait through the month, almost worked. Almost.

Inevitably the constraints arising from choosing to paint the portrait in my workplace have played their part. Ben has been a very willing sitter, but with both of us leading very busy work lives finding time when we’ve both been free has proved tricky.

We have managed to grab 30 to 45 minutes during our lunch breaks a couple of times each week which has added up to around four and a half hours painting time. Mind you, some of this has been absorbed by chatting to interested passers-by…

The amount of positive interest has taken me aback a little.  It can’t be often you see someone painting at an easel in a professional, corporate environment, and I did wonder whether I might attract any negative views. But I was wrong; everyone has been very supportive and encouraging.

Ben 04 acrylic portrait
More work around shirt and jacket
Ben 05 acrylic portrait
Refining the eyes and specs

The last couple of sittings have seen small refinements around the eyes and specs with a little work to define the shirt and jacket. I’m keen not to overwork the outlying areas so as to maintain focus on the face. I really don’t want to over finish it, I’m keen that it should remain loose. Another couple of sessions should see it off, and I may make any final tweaks at home when I’m not quite so wired! I may glaze over the background to even out the tonal changes a little.

My palette throughout has been my standard mix of warm and cool: Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Alizarin Crimson, Quinacridone Red, Cadmium Yellow, Hansa Yellow, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine blue, Titanium White ad Mixing White. Mostly Liquitex heavy body acrylics with a few Winsor and Newton Artist’s acrylics.

I recently bought a luscious looking Liquitex Van Dyke Red which may get a look in, but I’ll proceed with caution. Chucking new colours into an existing mix is not always beneficial.

Be sure to pop back is a week or two when the portrait should be finished.

Ben’s Portrait after ninety minutes

For all my apprehension at creating a portrait of one of my colleagues, Ben, in a series of short, live and public sittings I have to say I’m really enjoying myself.

Frankly there was always much which might have conspired to derail the process. Not least I expected my decision to try and paint at my workplace to raise a few quizzical eyebrows.  From the point of view of our facilities management team mine must have counted as one of the oddest requests they’ve received. And I’d no idea what my managers and colleagues might think…

I have to say that so far my efforts have been met with nothing but interest, and I’ve had some very lovely comments from all quarters. So far, so good. Everyone has been so gracious and accepting of this lunatic who brought his paints and easel to work. Far from being off putting, I’ve found the attention has been very encouraging, spurring me on to give of my best.

Even switching rapidly from my ‘work’ head to my ‘painting’ head hasn’t been as problematic as I thought it might. The shortness of time available to me during breaks is forcing me to make rapid decisions and I’m making sure that every minute available for painting counts.

Ben-underpainting
Under-painting complete in 40 mins

Our first session was about 40 minutes of painting time (I’m not including any prep and clean up time). I wanted to complete a tonal under-painting as quickly as possible so over an initial red chalk drawing I used a 1″ brush and Burnt Umber darkened with Mars Black or lightened with Titanium White. Ben sat against a neutral coloured blind with a very strong, sunlit, backlight shining through.

Ben-background-under-painting
Background under-painting

The second session was completed in 20 minutes without Ben present. I wanted to establish the under-painting for the background. I chose to work this in a pale violet to act as a compliment for what is likely to be a cool yellow ochre final colour.

First colour on Bens portrait
Broad colour applied

Then, darkness… On the third session the clouds and rain rolled in, and the wonderful light we once had was sucked into a growing grey grimness. With a yellowy artificial light coming from many directions, I relied on both observation and memory to inform where I should lay the first colour blocks. I’ve mostly used Liquitex Heavy Body acrylics supplemented with a few Winsor and Newton Artists acrylics. For speed I worked with colour straight from the tube without any added medium  other than a wee spot of plain water to increase fluidity.

I particularly relish the cool mixes arising from the cobalt blue and yellow ochre. Lighter tints were made by adding a combination of Mixing White and Titanium White. Titanium White on its own can be very harsh, I like the softer effect of adding Mixing White. A single half inch flat brush was used throughout.

While progress on this session was rapid, about 25 to 30 minutes, I can already see I’m actively avoiding three areas: the eyes, mouth and nose. Got to get a grip on these next time while also working more broadly across the rest of the painting. More sessions are planned for next week when I’ll try and bring the weaker areas up to scratch. Watch this space.

All primed for Twitter’s #PortraitNovember

First of all ‘Thanks’ to everyone who visited ‘Closer to the Art’ last Saturday in Stone, Staffordshire and came up to say ‘Hi’. So many lovely people and a great atmosphere, with four of my fourteen paintings finding new homes with a positive option on a fifth. I’ll be honest, I thought my lowest priced paintings would have been the first to go; shows what I know doesn’t it?

Oddly, even for such a modest show, I found fitting the preparation in between work and home unexpectedly tiring; I’ve been a positively bleary eyed this week – and a little listless too. So, now that ‘Closer to the Art’ is out of the way, I think a change of pace is in order.

I’ve decided I’m going to do two things. In the evenings I’m going to set about my Hulk vs Spider-man sculpture again. Bit of a long running fan-boy project this which seems to emerge when the nights get darker (its been safely tucked up in a cosy box over the summer). I find this sort of sculpt proceeds very slowly, so don’t expect any major new reveals immediately. More over the coming weeks.

During the daylight hours, when I’ve got more chance of actually being awake, I’m going to take part in the #PortraitNovember Twitter challenge. For this I’m going to build on the work I did during #DrawingAugust where I produced pen  portraits of my work colleagues every day for the whole month.

Day 21 Drawing August
Day 21
Drawing August Day 1
Day 1

One of my colleagues (pictured) has very kindly (foolishly?) offered to sit for me throughout #PortraitNovember.  This time I want to use acrylics, and work larger than my original sketches.  I’m hoping to paint during break times at work, and my employer has kindly given permission for me to set up easel and paints in our offices for the month. Guess I know who’ll be providing the lunchtime entertainment over the next few weeks…

My intention is to make only a quick preparatory sketch, then get straight into making a single painting. In reality I’m only going to be able to spare a couple of hours a week at most.

I’m not at all sure how well this is going to go. During #DrawingAugust the thing I found most challenging was snapping out of my analytical ‘work’ mind-set and straight into a creative state of mind. Some days were very obviously better than others! Combine that with the fact that portraiture in general is so far out of my comfort zone, this could prove interesting.  Watch this space.

Goodbye Drawing August

And so the second year of Drawing August slips away. For me it really has been a challenge. Despite keeping strictly to my self-imposed time limit of 15 minutes per drawing, getting the time at weekends has still been whisker tight. Honestly, I think I’ve acquitted myself OK with my set of pen portraits of work colleagues. Admittedly there are one or two horrors in there, but by and large all have carried something of the sitter. I was tempted to leave some out of the succession, but that would defeat the object. This has been about exploring an area of drawing which is outside my comfort zone.  It’s simply not possible to turn out a corker each time; I’m wide of that goal by a very wide country mile at the moment. By and large I have stuck to my guns and produced only pen line drawings, although on Day 16 I went off piste a little with a set of Winsor and Newton watercolour markers. Well they were sitting in their shiny new box beckoning to me; would have been rude not to use them… Before I leave you with a gallery of all thirty one sketches here’s a summary of the key things I’ve learned:

  • Warm up first. Coming straight from an intense analytical mind set at work and expecting to produce a great sketch in 15 minutes was never going to be the best work practie. You may be able to spot the days when I was most agitated.
  • Line up other people to model at weekends. I got a little tired of knocking out selfies.
  • A thicker pen is both more impactful and encourages greater and more immediate expression.
  • Maybe a little variation wouldn’t have been a bad thing after all. By sticking rigidly to my brief – the drawings have taken on a similar quality and tend to merge one into the other.

Finally, a bonus side effect  of Drawing August is that now several of my sitters are very willing for me to continue beyond August, just to keep my hand in.  Thanks everyone for being such willing and accommodating sitters. Without you this page would be blank.

The Portraits

My personal favourites are Days 1, 2, 6, 7, 21 and 23, which are yours?