Self Portrait

Hey!

In one form or another, I've tried to keep a blog going and it's always failed. I think my problem was that I always tried to overcomplicate things. I would often try too hard to have something to 'say', rather that letting things 'speak' for themselves. At least, that's the theory behind this blog....

So, what I'm now going to do is simply post my work, work in progress, and musings from my studio. My hope is that it will give others some sort of insight into what I do, perhaps give me some valuable context (because I work from home), and even link to my web site to try and drum up some publicity for my work and the classes I teach. Hey, you can't blame me for trying.

So, this first post is going to be a work in progress shot of a self portrait.

Stage 1.

The Sketch:

Firstly, this painting is on panel, done with oil paint. I started mapping out my dark colours with ultramarine. I don't bother drawing with pencil, it muddies the paint and there's really no point, you can paint over your mistakes with oil anyway! My overall mid-tone is the ochre background. So, the theory is, I've already got my mid-tone and my dark tone.

The toned background may lead some to think that this painting is going to be done in the imprimatura style, that is, with glazes over a toned background. In reality, this will be painted closer to the alla prima style; opaquely and not with transparent glazes.

Stage 2.

Establishing lights and blocking in the overall form.



In case you haven't noticed, I'm not working from a photograph. Photographs, to me, are works of art in their own right. Why make a painting that is representational of a photo, when you can go out and take a photograph!? The exception to this is where the photo is used as a source, and considerable extrapolation has been used in the artwork to make it stand apart as a separate work of art from the original source photo. I also consider it acceptable to use a photo as a supplement WHILE working from life, but certainly not a substitute for it.

Many students ask me what 'blocking in' is. Well, 'blocking in' is this stage, where an emphasis is made on trying to broadly model the form while establishing roughly where the lights and darks are. It often helps to half-close your eyes at this point. Be loose, if you tighten up at this stage it makes it harder to rectify mistakes and can result in fussy looking marks.

Also, be aware that colours have a tonal quality, realising this is crucial to implying depth in your work. The objects in the background should be less saturated than those in the foreground of the painting. Saturation is a term applied to the purity of colour. That means colours can afford to be mixed more in the background (desaturating them), making them 'sit further back'.

Stage 3.



This is the first stage of tightening up. I am also making sure that the tonal range is wide enough. I have also begun to add a little resolution to the background of the painting.

Stage 4.

In this stage I added more tonal steps to make the face appear more three dimensional. I also continue to add resolution to the background.

Stage 5.


This is pretty much the final stage where I am happy with the resolution of the painting. What happens next is tweeking of the tones using glazes of colour. Certain areas need to be more saturated and others 'knocked back'. I have also tightened up some of the detail without being overly fussy about it.

Stage 6.


I'm still not happy with the way the head sits against the background. The following stages are where I try to harmonise the painting.

Stage 7.

I'm now happy with the contrast, and how the warm and cool colours accentuate one another. I think it's now finished. I applied some earth toned glazes to knock areas back and added blue glazes to cool some areas down. Make sure, when you're applying glazes, to use more linseed oil or even a touch of stand oil in the upper layers of the painting. This assures that the upper areas of paint won't dry before the preceeding ones, minimising the likely-hood of cracking.

Stage 8.



The final framed piece. I chose a 'slip' that brings out the highlights in the head. Also, I think the texture of the frame sits well with the background.