Two Self Portraits on Gessoed Paper

-


A couple of self portraits I did while experimenting with gessoed paper as the support.  It seems to encourage a fresher and more free approach.  I also like the torn edges of the paper.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Portrait Of Anne 7th Sitting

-
Image
Another session yesterday. I started by applying some thin glazes on the left side of Anne's face trying to add a bit of depth to the shadow areas. Then I worked into that, using slightly more impasto paint. Last week I was struggling so much in bad lighting conditions that I turned on an electric light to give a bit more ambient light to her right side, and I quite like it so we've decided to keep it. I've added cadmium orange to my palette. It is a strangely cool orange that I've never been able to duplicate using cadmium yellow and red and as a tint with lots of white it makes a good colour for flesh lit by electric light. The same goes for alizarian crimson or rose madder tints. The left side of her face is picking up the natural light from the windows on that side and I'm using terre vert, raw umber, mars violet and ivory black. I was still not happy about something and I came to the conclusion I had the eyes too close together. Much to Anne's const...
Read more

Portrait Of Anne 4th Sitting

-
Image
We put in about four hours yesterday. Started working on Annes left eye, which happens to be her larger one. I've become acutely aware of my own eyes whilst working on this painting. I've become used to working very closely to my painting and looking over the top of my glasses. I am short sighted which means as my eyes age they are actually getting better for close-up work - I have to remove my glasses to read now. So it's been good for the small miniature paintings I've been doing over the last three years or so. However, with a larger painting, and the constant refocussing between observing Anne and working on the painting, I'm finding it quite a strain on my eyes. I've tryed progressive lenses without much success and now I'm tryign the so called mono-vision ie: one lense for long range and another for close range effectively making me one eyed. Everyone has a dominant eye. Just as some people are left handed, some favour the left eye and vice-versa....
Read more

Roll your Own Chalk Pastels

-
Image
Every now and again i feel i ought to make use of the modern tech and social media platforms, that artists now have at our disposal in order to disseminate our work. Show and Tell, in other words.  The problem i find is in deciding which of the constantly changing and confusing avenues, is the right one to concentrate my efforts. People who've known me for a while, are possibly aware that i kept a Painting A Day blog for many years. That was very successful for me for about 8 years and then interest seemed to wane. I started another blog called Another Day, which was a play on that whole daily practice, but it has never generated the same interest or following. Partly because of the rise in dominance of Facebook, i suspect. Sure you can link to blogs and so forth, via FB, but how effective is that? Now i notice that FB itself is waning with more people opting to use Instagram or another of the umpteen social media platforms. Its difficult to know where to concentrate your e...
Read more