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.