Another Day

Self Portrait in Fading Light III Oil on Arches paper 212x205mm Self Portrait in Fading Light IV Oil on paper 170x110mm

  Self Portrait in Fading Light II Oil on gessoed Arches paper The light at this time of year really does fade fast in the afternoon and that is my usual painting time.  Working in the half light is interesting because the distracting details get lost and you can concentrate on the forms.

  Self Portrait in Fading Light Oil on gessoed Arches paper 200x165mm Oil paint on paper has a special quality about it that I find quite sensuous. I worked with the paint very thin and used my fingers and a rag to blend the colour and reveal the texture of the paper.  I wanted to try and capture the mysterious quality of the fading lig ht and wasn't too concerned about getting proportions correct.

The first session with paint, just blocking in and adjusting some proportions.

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. 

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...

I have been stretching a large linen canvas canvas for a new painting of Anne Holiday.  It's the largest canvas I've prepared for some time and I'd forgotten what a difficult and time consuming job it is!  I construct my own stretcher frames using timber that I've had beveled on one side. This is necessary so that the stretcher bars will not touch and show through on the surface of the painting. I cross-brace the frame for strength, otherwise it will warp.  Stretching linen is always difficult. It's harder to stretch than cotton and in spite of what the experts say, in my experience I have found that it fluctuates more with humidty changes than cotton does.  In fact you have to be very carefull not to overstretch it if it is raw unprimed canvas like I am using. Once the linen is primed with acrylic gesso it shrinks and goes tight as a drum, often distorting the frame and even tearing.  I have often read that it is easier to stretch whilst wet, so this time I ...