looking to relax my portrait sketching by using various different media and techniques and studying other portraits that convey the …..pain, tension, defiance I am trying to achieve.
Marlene Dumas’ exhibition at Tate Modern was very stimulating in the minimal brushes strokes and black and white tones….powerful sorrow. Francis Bacon distortions create discomfort in viewer and strange connection with portrait as if contradictions inherent in being human are made physical. Bright scarlet background adds to discomfort somehow doesn’t cheer, but acid colour reverberates.
Made mono-print on fabric to make me looser. Cut lino print, splashed white paint on grey linen, printed portrait which I then doodled with stitch. Adding the black back stitches was more successful than I expected but don’t really know how to develop, tightened and contrasted the tones…….maybe a bigger portrait……maybe a crowd…..army
