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.
