have just come home for lunch. painting makes me very hungry! i painted the first layer on olivia today, and am in the process of refining the first layer on me. i’ll put photos of that up later. going to attempt to finish helen, having it sitting there unfinished is annoying me a bit.
here are the ones of olivia, and of my degree show layout, and a photo of my studio space.
did lots today, very pleased with myself! photoshopped the photos that i chose, upping the contrast a bit so i get some good shadows, then printed them. i took loads of photos today, of the actual process, so you’ll be able to see it from the very beggining to the end. to transfer the image to the canvas i do a tracing using plastic and a black marker, going round the features, then pull up the sheet bit by bit, drawing in pencil the line, so then i have a rough idea of where everything is. this is a really importrant part of the process, because if i make a mistake at the stage, and don’t notice it, then, say, the eye might be a centimetre the wrong way and i might not notice until after i’ve painted it and that would be a disater! after that i paint in over the pencil with a browny green wash, adding some tones. then i put on the first layer of paint, wheich won’t be visable in the final piece but just acts as a base to put other colours on. i did that on the one of me, it looks like me which is a huge realief becuase the one of helen didn’t look like her for ages. hopefully these won’t cause me too much pain (famous last words!)
the one bad thing about today was that the canvas’s that i ordered for the skull paintings are too small, it’s my fault, for some strange reason i thought i wanted them to be six inches, when in fact they need to be ten, so i’ve placed another order.
i also did a bit more work on helen, not enough too warrant another photo, i’ll wait till its done before i put that up.
i did a mock up of the placement of the paintings in my degree show, as i mentioned before i’ve changed the order somewhat, i’ll put those photos on too…
ok, iknow which image i am using of olivia now. the one of my is giving m a bit of trouble, i think vanity may be getting in the way of choosing the photo that is going to work best as a painting, rather than which one is going to make me look good! the main property that it needs to possess is a decent graduaton from light to dark in the skintones; ie part of the face needs to be significantly lighter than the other. this is so i can avoid the difficulties that i had in helen’s portrsit, where her face was all the same tone. also, it needs to be quite close up, like the one of kate, so the brushmarks that i use correspond to the size of the face, again, a lesson i learned from helen’s portrait. the one of olivia looks better tonally at the moment because i’ve photoshopped it – it looked a bit washed out before.
aaaah, back at uni. just over three weeks until my degree show has to be put up, and i have a lot to do in that time. i have to finish another two portraits (i’m printing out the photos tommorow), paint four skull paintings, do a dissertation, make a sketchbook, photograph the work, hang the work. is it humanly possible?! i think so, but i don’t think i’m going to be doing anything else for the next four weeks. i’m going to go and make my final decision about which two photographs i’m printing out tommmorow, then i’ll post them on here. wish me luck….
