Rachel’s Portrait

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I thought I’d finished Rachel’s portrait a month or so ago, but after looking at it for a week I decided to do some tweaking. Mostly adding reflected colour to the balloons. Only then was I happy to sign it and call it ‘done’. Today I delivered it to Rachel, who now has to find a wall space large enough for it.

It was a fun portrait to do. Bright and cheerful, and a nice contrast to Jason’s portrait, which is all dark and moody. Doing two portraits at the same time has worked well for me, even though I usually only work on one at each class. I’ve started to take for granted that I know how the paint will go on using the spatula this way or that, and how far I can push the paint around before it muddies, though I still stuff up regularly. Thankfully oils are very forgiving.

Jason’s portrait is close to done. Another session, I hope. Last week I also did the underpainting for the next one:

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Works in Progress, or Not

As I mentioned in the last post, I’ve finished Rachel’s portrait. Well, mostly. There are some tweaks I want to make, now I’ve had time to examine it critically. I’d be doing them this morning, if I wasn’t in the goopy, vertigo-ey, exhausting phase of a head cold, and not wanting to spread it around.

Jason’s has a session or two to go:

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I’ve started stitching on one of the garments I wanted to embellish. After a few false starts, I settled on purple and mauve flowers with green branches winding between them.

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I started the eye:

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The leno scarf isn’t finished because I’m holding off working on it. I want to show it to the weaving group:

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The Double Trouble baby blankets are going slowly.

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The art necklace… what necklace?

Portrait Update

Both of the portraits have progressed since I last blogged about them two months ago:

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I’m not avoiding Jason’s face and hands, I just love painting clothing too much. And it amuses me that, with the underpainting showing, it looks like I’m painting a green man.

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I’d worked on Rachel’s face three times at this point and there’s still some work to do. Her eyes are more open on the reference, for a start. Her lips need refining. The balloons will get more tweaking, too. They’re still a bit flat, texturally.

Portrait Progress: Rachael & Jason

Last year I painted two portraits. I remember thinking that I might get one done per month, apart from the month I went overseas and December. Well, that proved a little optimistic. Still, I would like to get more than two done a year.

This year I’m aiming to have two going at the same time and get four done in a year. So I’m staying at art classes for the full day, not just the morning. I rarely managed to get any writing done on the afternoon of a painting day last year, so I may as well keep painting. But in case I get sick of working on one portrait all day, I have another on hand to switch to.

At our New Year party I asked around and found a willing victim: Rachael. I told her to think about where she’d like to be in her portrait. A few days later I tweeted about having a bath full of balloons leftover from the party, and she tweeted back that this would be an awesome setting. So we had a photo shoot:

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After considering a close up of her face surrounded by balloons, or a painting that showed she was in a bath full of balloons, I went for the latter. The smaller the head is the harder it is to get detail in, so I chose a large canvas. After sketching in the details in red I decided to paint the sides and bath silver then, like in Cat’s portrait, leave some of this underpainting showing. Here’s an early shot:

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The next week I worked on balloons:

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Having done two portraits of women and starting another, I wanted a male subject for the second one. Jason, a horror writer friend, was up for it. He chose the Polly Cocktail Lounge in Fitzroy, with its furnishing in rich colours and boudoir-like atmosphere.

I chose a smaller canvas than I did for Rachael’s portrait and underpainted with gold and green (the green is looking rather blue here):

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Then I got stuck into the clothing. I so love painting clothing:

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It would be great if I had these finished by the middle of the year. Which means I should start thinking about arranging photos shoots for two new subjects for the second half. I have one willing male subject from NSW that I have to arrange a photo shoot with, and a female one who put her hand up last time I asked around, so I’ll have to see if I can make those happen.

Happy Camper

Last weekend we went camping. Since I’m supposed to stay off my feet for six months or more, when everyone went walking on the Saturday I stayed in the camp site. But that was fine with me, because a hundred metres or so away were some impressive views. I took my homemade ponchard box and did two paintings, one in the morning, the other in the afternoon.

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While having lunch, I spotted a goanna snooping around the edges of the camp site.

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I took a lot of pics, but the goanna managed to hide behind things most of the time. Later, while I was sitting quietly reading and having a cuppa, I had company again. I stayed put, and to my amazement he/she came right up to my chair. I had my iPhone on me, so I took a video, but my attempts to embed it on this page haven’t worked, unfortunately.

The walkers came back a few minutes later, and with some frantic signalling I got them to approach quietly so as to not frighten off the goanna. Much snapping of photos followed – probably much better ones than I took with my iPhone.

On the way to and from the campsite we drove past a lot of bushfire damage:

Along country roads:
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A plantation:
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Even along the main highway:
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And the coal mine was still alight:
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Japanese Ink Painting

A long time ago I read a book about Sumi-e – Japanese Ink Painting – and wanted to try it. I’m not sure why I didn’t. Possibly I had no idea where to get the tools from. After seeing some calligraphy supply shops in Tokyo I found myself thinking a little set or kit would be a fantastic souvenir. Something I could use later.

So when I found this little miniature calligraphy set in a temple souvenir shop I had to have it. There was an even smaller one that I lusted after, but this one has a tiny water dropper and the pretty box. (I have to admit, I was tempted to buy both.)

After watching an instructional YouTube video, I gave it a go while watching tv one night. I chose a subject sitting right in front of me.

I used a little scrap of thick watercolour paper. Now I’m thinking a little poem or quote about a cat might make this a lovely bookmark.

In Plein Air

Another “Do you remember this?” moment: aaaages ago, with Paul’s help, I made this ponchard box:

Well, three and a half years later I finally got around to using it. We went camping with friends a few weekends ago at Bear Gully, a little seaside camping spot in Victoria. I plonked myself on a stool on the beach on two of the days and was happy to find the box works perfectly – especially the all-important storage of paintings inside the lid.

The weather was very different. On the first day it was overcast but dry:

On the second the sun was out, but fortunately it wasn’t too hot:

Painting ‘in plein air’ was challenging and satisfying, but not exactly social. Which is why it took me so long to try the box. You really need a situation in which your friends/family/other half are happily otherwise occupied and don’t mind your attention being focussed elsewhere. Or else go with other painters.

One Finished, One Begun

I’ve finished Sam’s portrait:

The smaller test painting is on the right

I’m now letting it sit on the mantlepiece for a while to see if anything starts to bother me. Like with writing, sometimes it takes a while to stop being precious and pleased with yourself to see the flaws.

In the meantime, I’ve started another:

Don’t be alarmed, it’s underpainting

Cat, a fellow writer who was visiting from Sydney on the weekend. Being a graphic designer and artist as well, she had scouted out a great location before I’d got there. Just as with Sam, the last photo was the best.