Walking the Dog

 This started out as a failed portrait when I just couldn't get the proportions right. After lots of rubbing out, I decided to ring the changes and paint a landscape instead, where you have a bit more leeway with regards to accuracy. I am quite pleased with the result.

Portrait Artist of the Week is back

 Sky Arts TV have started their Facebook live events on Sundays again (10 am - 2 pm, UK time). This Sunday, Inge du Plessis painted Melanie Blatt from All Saints. I loved Inge du Pessis paintings on the Sky Artist of the Year competition and enjoyed listening to the relaxed conversation she had with Melanie.

I joined the live stream from 12 am and decided on using pencils for speed. I drew from the still photograph and surprisingly, the portrait came together within half an hour, without me consciously measuring anything. As I was refining the drawing, I started to lose the likeness and spent the next hour trying to get it back. I used a rubber at the end for some highlights.

Unfortunately, we are entering another lockdown phase in the UK and wonder if it's going to be even harder than the first one. At least, Portrait Artist of the Week will provide a welcome distraction on a Sunday.

Bridge at Audley End House

 This goes back to a visit to Audley End House, where I had the choice of several bridges to paint. Another exercise in light and shade, similar to my last post of cows under a tree.

Summer has come back with a heatwave in September, which is perfect for spending time outside and meeting friends in the garden. 

Cows under a tree

I loved the pattern the dappled light painted on the tree trunk and the cows.

These cows live on the Wimpole Hall estate, which belongs to the National Trust.

Chartwell

Chartwell in Kent was Churchill's home for many years and now belongs to the National Trust.

Night Scene

The  Lea Valley Art Society's theme this week was 'night scene', which inspired me to paint this picture, using a daytime photo of London as a loose reference. I particularly like the deep blue of the sky, for which I mixed teal, cobalt and ultramarine blue.

Portrait Artist of the Week

The Portrait Artist of the Week streaming programme on Facebook came to an end on Sunday with Mary Beard as the final sitter and Selena Mowat as the artist painting her portrait live.


This is my portrait of Mary Beard in watercolour.

To my mind, a common mistake in painting teeth is to make them too white, which makes them look unnatural. I toned them down with a mix of raw sienna, cerulean blue and a touch of alizarin crimson.

I am quite happy with the likeness I achieved.

The previous Sunday, rap artist Professor Green was the sitter, painted by the brilliant Tom Mead.
I knew I wanted to include his distinctive tattoo in the portrait. An added challenge was the position of the head, viewed from below, which changes the proportions of the face.

The week before that, Clare Balding sat for Aine Divine, an excellent and inspiring watercolour artist. Here is my version:

I painted Clare from a screen shot and misinterpreted the shape of her earring but decided to leave it as I liked the shape.


The sitter of the following portrait is Noel Fielding, who sat for Kimberly Klauss. 
In my version, I incorporated elements from Noel's own painting in the background. (The whites in this photo have a blue cast, which I wasn't able to correct).

What have I learnt from this experience? Most of all, that it doesn't get any easier with practice and that surprisingly, it took me longer to complete the paintings as the weeks went on. For every portrait, one starts from scratch in working out the proportions of the face and in struggling for a likeness.

It has been an enriching experience and will remain one of the positive memories of the lockdown period. 

Will Young portrait

Will Young watercolour painting

This is the latest painting of the facebook streaming event created by Artist of the Year for Sky Arts TV.

I found the lighting challenging with lighting from both sides of the face. Another thing I struggled with was the likeness which I am still not sure I have achieved. The likeness usually appears gradually during the painting process and when it doesn't, it's hard to retrace one's steps to see where one went wrong.

Chris Hook was the professional artist who painted on the day, one of my favourite winners of Portrait Artist of the Year. His portraits are both accurate and freely painted.

Rankin and Rob Rinder Portraits

This weekly event by Sky Arts TV on Facebook has become a welcome fixture for my Sunday mornings. The sitters of the last two weeks were photographer Rankin and tv personality Robert Rinder.

Rankin

Rob Rinder

I found painting in watercolour a lot more difficult than the pencil portraits I did the two previous weeks, which surprised me, as watercolour is my medium of choice. I assume working in colour and not just tone added an extra challenge.

With both portraits, I built the layers up to start with and then, towards the end, lifted paint to create lighter tones.

Overall, I am pleased with the likeness I have achieved in both portraits. My way of working is to start with the big shapes of the head and finish with the mouth and eyes. 

We may mistakenly think that it's the eyes that make a person recognisable, as we naturally focus on them, but it is the general shapes of the head that create a likeness. If those are wrong, then an accurately painted eye makes no difference.

Tree blossom

Another painting inspired by our daily walks. We still go out in all weathers to connect with life around us, which is so important in this time of isolation. 

Painting white flowers (this photo shows them too dark) is a challenge in watercolour as the white is the unpainted paper, and one can be tempted to go in too dark and lose the delicacy of the flowers. 

Pencil Portraits

Akram Khan

Bernardine Evaristo

This was the second Sunday that Sky TV broadcast a live paint along on their facebook page.  It lasted for four hours, but I found that I completed both portraits in half the time. 

Last Sunday's sitter was the dancer and choreographer Akram Khan, painted by Portrait Artist finalist Christabel Blackburn; and this morning, the author Bernardine Evaristo posed for Duncan Shoesmith, an artist whose style I really like. He models the face with blocks of paint without too much blending.

I managed to draw Akram Khan from life, as he kept really still, but this Sunday, I had to resort to a still image because Bernardine was moving a lot more. I did notice however, that further into the four hours, she was sitting still for longer.

For both drawings, I used 2B pencils on A3 cartridge paper in landscape orientation. I drew in the centre line of the face and placed horizontal lines for the eyes, the bottom of the nose, the mouth and the bottom of the chin. The only measuring I did was the placement of the mouth in relation of the chin, which in both cases was about a third of the distance from the bottom of the nose to the chin. 

Sky Arts have created this programme because at the moment, they can't film Portrait Artist of the Year 2021 because of social distancing rules. I am very grateful to them for creating an interactive programme where artists can make art together. 

Lockdown walks

We are still blessed with glorious weather and have been out on daily walks. Close to the river, we are now meeting the same animals almost daily. One of them is a female muntjac, who seems to stay in the same area and lets us get quite close before walking away through the undergrowth. Another is a cormorant who has made a tree in the lake its home to perch on and dry its feathers. Until about five years ago, I had never seen any cormorants in our area but now there are at least two.

Close to the edge of the lake, there are nests where coots are busy raising their redheaded chicks. Further out, more coots seem to spend all their time bickering with each other. And amongst them, a swan glides by, using its wings to catch the wind.

I loved how the sun lit up its feathers, which I tried to capture in my painting.

Spring blossom

The Lea Valley Art Society helps to keep us going by giving us weekly challenges to do during this period of social distancing. This week's theme is spring, for which I have used a photo I took last summer in Sheringham Park.

I had wanted to paint these cows for some time, as I like the strong sunlight on them. To show this, I went for maximum contrast, leaving the sunlit part of the cow's bodies as white paper. 

To fit the spring theme, I turned the tree pink to show blossom instead of foliage.

Trafalgar Square in happier times

Every so often, I scroll through my photos to see what inspires to paint. In this time of being almost cut off from the outside world, it's wonderful to remember visits to crowded places such as this one.

I expect we are still weeks away from being released from our isolation and I am thankful that we are still allowed out for daily exercise, which gives us the opportunity to connect with our surroundings.

Early spring walks

We have now had almost a week of lockdown in the most beautiful weather. This is a view of one of our local reservoir lakes where I have been walking every day, while we are still allowed outside. Almost all the bays are occupied by fishermen who make the most of their enforced leisure time.

It seems to me that the air smells fresher now than before the lockdown. It calls to mind holidays in the mountains. As there are hardly any planes going overhead, the air quality must be better now than in normal times.

The three birds in the sky are a late addition to the painting: I noticed a splash of paint there and turned it into a bird and then gave it two more companions.

Making art in the time of Corona

This is my second week at home because of the Corona virus  lockdown. I am lucky that painting is a hobby that is still possible to do in isolation, and with access to photos of past holidays, I am finding plenty of inspiration and they remind me of happier times.

I hope you all find something to keep you busy and free from worrying if you are in a similar situation. The introverts amongst us are probably finding this enforced isolation easier to cope with.

I am glad that I have open spaces near me that I can reach on foot while we are still allowed outside for physical exercise. Walks in nature are calming and keep me in touch with the seasonal changes around me.

Horse statue

This is based on the stables courtyard of Waddesdon Manor, a National Trust property in England. I just loved the horse statue (by Edgar Boehm), which looks so full of vitality and energy.

Some of the proportions and architectural details are not accurate but I think it works as a painting nonetheless. I also changed the white of the sun umbrella to blue, as I thought it suited the overall colour scheme better.

Waddesdon Manor is a very elegant property, which emulates the architecture of a French chateau, and is well worth a visit.