Self Portraits

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Self Portrait in Fading Light III
Oil on Arches paper
212x205mm




Self Portrait in Fading Light IV
Oil on paper
170x110mm

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A Still Life Monoprint

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I wanted to try a monoprint using the slow dryng Open Acrylics. I used a rectangle of white perspex as my plate. Being white this made it easier to see what I was doing.  I spent quite a while working on the plate, probably as long as I would on a regular painting. Regular acrylics would not allow you to do this as they dry too quickly. Here is the image I pulled off it, printing on a small ethching press. The image is of course reversed.  I wasn't too happy with it really. I thought it looked better o the perspex plate!  However, regarding it as a learning process I perservered. There is usually a ghost of the image left on the plate after printing, so I reworked the image more loosely this time and produced the two further prints below. They are a bit more lively, but I still wasn't happy with them. I was wiping the plate clean when I thought I'd give it one more chance.  I like this one the best of the lot. 
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I have made an initial start on the large portrait of Anne Sitting.  As is usual when painting, your present work will spawn new ideas for further work and exploration.  While I was painting Anne's portrait last year, I realised that a more complete picture with her sitting in the chair would be a truer and more compelling portrait.  She habitually wears many layers of dark clothes and has these lurid orange plastic shoes. The shoes became a problem for me on the last portrait as they kept distracting my eye, and I asked her to wear different ones.  It became something of a joke between us, and we both agreed that for this painting she sh ould wear them. I began our first sitting by making a few preliminary drawings.  Drawing is always a good way to get to know a subject.  It doesn't matter that they are rough or crude; they are not intended to be finished artworks.  They are working drawings and you start to get a feel for where potential p...
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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...
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