Thursday, 1 January 2009

self portrait

And the winner is..........

Last year I won another competition run by the wonder people at Wai Art. I used the prize money to go to Maui and take part in a wonderful Sumi Ink workshop run by Max Gimblett. You can see who won and finalled in this years portrait exhibition here

You can follow the journey from inception to completion of my own entry below

Following in the tradition of master artists I am tackling the challenge of a painting my "self".
I thought you may be interested to see the journey toward my self portrait...

Will post regular updates and notes re colour and technique least you feel inclined to paint yourself too

I am aiming to have it completed in time for the Wai Art Portrait awards in Feb - this and two others. It is always nice to have a tangible goal to work towards

02 Feb 2009 - here is the finished version which is now hanging in the Wai Portrait Awards. You can go along and check out other fabulous works from Saturday 07 February to Sunday 22 February. With this version I tried to work from a photograph instead of my own reflection in the mirror....plus I added more flowers and played around with skin tone a bit more....not sure about this version....wonder if working from a flat photograph kinda dulled it a bit or if all the flowers are over kill

One thing I do know is how much I admire portrait artists like Marty Welch who do such an awesome job rendering people "real"

24 January
After much procrastination I headed down to my studio and transferred the changes I had made from the photo's in the previous post - you know, teeth!

Here is another of today's versions.....a few people thought the tall sunflower was a bit dominating so I painted over it (I'd tried this out first on the photo too.) It's similar to the image below (which is just cropped a bit for the camera) but I decided I needed to touch up the neck line. I can't believe Marty can knock out portraits in 10 days! I've been working on this for months - mind you, I only do a few hours a week. I definitely think it is worth perservering - I'm enjoying the challenge. Lot's of people don't think it looks like me.....I think it does so it just shows that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

20 Jan 2008
I spent an awesome Wellington Anniversary day today hanging out at The New Zealand Portrait Gallery. The most amazing exhibition of Stephen Martyn Welch based on the TVNZ 6 documentary “The Sitting.” Click here to see more about this amazing exhibition.

I was blown over when I recognised one of his portraits called “P”. I had admired it at what those in the art world call “the prestigious Adam Portrait Awards.” The reason I was blown over is because I had finalled in this award with my first ever portrait of my grandmother Molly.

I know people there were good, but I didn’t realize how good until I saw Marty's (as he prefers to be known) work. He is amazing – and self-taught to boot! Whooo-hoooo...there is hope for us hobbyists!

I felt so inspired after watching re-runs of the programme and seeing his work that I rushed back to my studio and did some more work on my self-portrait.

This is what I look like now – hopefully you agree that I look happier. Everybody that saw the last draft thought I looked incredibly sad.

I am wondering if I should ACTUALLY smile - so have twinked in some teeth...better?

or better with a bit of crayon and stripping out the sunflower....as you can see i am not a planful type of painter!
At least by working on top of a photo when I have got to this stage I don't have to work my canvas (and expensive paint) so much. When I compare the previous images (previous to these ones) I can definitely notice more happiness...funny how I didn't see it before. Must have been concentrating! I learnt a lot from Marty's TV chat and the importance he gives of catching someone's essence - makes sense really. What's a portrait without someone's soul?

Flower Power.....here I am - still on 14 Jan but now with some flowers. Why flowers? People used to call me "pot plant" on account of the flowery dresses I used to wear; at work people say I am flowery (in relation to my emphasis on happiness@work; I love the Dalai Lama quote: "positive thoughts are like flowers, they have to be nurtured everyday"; and lastly - I am most happiest when I am surrounded by nature. The lavender symbolises calm, relaxation and is growing around my home. The other flowers are chosen for their colour - my favorite...I'm still working out how to squeeze in a sunflower - a flower which naturally orientates itself toward the sun, and which never fails to cheer people up.

I have been working on getting the skin tone a bit more like my own and used a mix of vermillion (who'd have thought we have orange in our skin!) Plus yellow ochre and white...I think I may have put a dash of rose pink madder as well. For shaded areas around the nose and nostrils I have used black mixed with burnt umber. This time while working on shading I have found it helpful to mix a variety of different tones using the skin tone base so that blending is a bit more natural. I also used a glaze medium so colour is less flat looking and built up layers....seems to be working nicely and I am a lot happier with the nose...so far noses have been my greatest challenge. I have a folder with pages and pages of noses

Here I am as at 14 Jan - just getting ready to add some flowers!

This is how "i" look today 01 January 2009 - New Years Day!

I've focused on creating a more "natural" hair colour. I've used a mix of Naples Yellow, with white and a tad of Raw Umber. For the darker area I have blended Paynes Grey and Raw Umber.

I also reduced the length of my neck - proportion is everything! (this I read in a book on human anatomy for artists that I got out of the library. Plus I got rid of the green oval chair and made the background a scumbled blue. Still not sure if I will leave the blue or add a landscape backdrop to better capture the essence of where I feel most comfortable - here at our life style block where I am painting over the New Year. the flowers you can see are the long grass that sprung up when I positioned the painting on the ground to photograph it. This gave me an idea that I may follow up on tomorrow - adding flowers and making the whole thing a bit more abstracted