There becomes a battle when Portrait painting between what the paint wants and the character of the person. Sometimes the character can own the painting and sometimes the composition can overcompensate so that the character is lost in the act of painting. It is this balance that makes painting so enjoyable. How much should the artist render the image? Should there be other objects around? How will this aid or detract from the face? These are the questions I have been asking myself.
Most of my paintings follow a similar process. I select an image and then crop it before altering colour or brightness. I began my painting of Kal-El from the film Man of Steel by sectioning my canvas on the vertical and horizontal. The face was then drawn roughly in pencil. Once I started painting there was no order to which I applied the paint. With my next painting I used a more structured approach, starting with the eyes and working outwards. This is important because the eyes are the focus.
I have cropped the images to just around the face. It is the facial features (mouth and eyes) that tell a story and show emotion. My paint is sometimes translucent so that the grid is still visible underneath, an added reminder that what we are looking at is not real emotion. A further barrier between us and them is the block colour that is not quite realistic. At a distance the painting looks like real emotion but when close to, the flatness of the paint can be seen. Like the pictures they represent these characters are not real but a way in which we can experience emotion and empathy in a safe situation and from a distance.
