Assignment 3

I have been looking forward to doing this assignment since I started part 3. I finally have access to a live model other than myself. My work colleague has volunteered to do some modelling for me and she is happy to pose nude if necessary.

I have already chosen the title ‘Josephine’ as this is the nickname I call her at work. Jo is a very bubbly personality and comes across as very confident; however, over the last couple of years, as I have gotten to know her, it has become apparent that this is a bit of a cover to hide her lack of self-confidence which she, herself, admits she has. It is this vulnerability that I want to try to capture in this assignment.

I am thinking that mirrors may be used in the composition, although this could change when Jo sits for me. In the meantime, I decided to do a little research to see how other artists have tackled reflections, the results of which can be found in the research section of this blog.

https://jansocapop.home.blog/2019/08/23/assignment-3-research/

Composition

On this blisteringly hot bank holiday Saturday afternoon, Jo and I had a fab time thinking about poses, drinking rose with me taking reference photographs and sketching.

I did a number of quick drawings in both charcoal and pencil with Jo in different positions and scenarios.

At the end of the session, I was drawn to two which I felt captured the idea of vulnerability that I am trying to achieve.

The first show Jo’s reflection in the mirror, hand to her mouth in an almost uncertain manner. The second shows Jo standing looking at her reflection in the full length mirror. To be totally honest, what attracted both Jo and I to this pose is the ‘s’ curve of her back.

I have since reviewed these sketches and the photographs I took during the afternoon session and I find myself drawn to a couple of photographs I took but didn’t sketch. There is one of Jo sitting in the middle of the bed. This would be a good composition for Part 3, Exercise 1: Figure in an Interior. The second shows her looking at herself in the full length mirror and is framed by the back of her head and shoulder. The third is a close up of her reflection. In this one she has such a beautiful, vulnerable expression on her face. This is the painting that slightly scares me as I am not sure I will be able to do it justice.

I have decided to do a couple of practice watercolour sketches of these to see if they work on paper.

I started by doing some line drawings in pen to get the basic composition. My intention is that these will just be simple watercolour sketches to see if they will work on paper. I then added colour with washes of watercolour, wet in wet, to get some depth into the pictures.

Of the three, my favourite is of Jo sitting on the bed and I feel this works well as a standalone painting. I particularly like the way the washes of paint have blended together on her skin to create shadows. I do however have reservations about using this composition for the assignment piece; it is a figure study but does it stand up as a portrait. I decided to look up the definition in the Oxford English Dictionary as follows:-

‘A painting, drawing, photograph, or engraving of a person, especially one depicting only the face or head and shoulders.’

For this reason I have decided to look at a more close up composition of Jo’s face and return to the mirror idea.

The second of the sketches is not a particularly good representation of Jo’s face and, although I like the composition, the painting would hang on me being able to capture the vulnerable expression she has which concerns me. For this reason I am going to go back to one of my earlier sketches of Jo with her head in her hand looking in the mirror, but I will do a close up version.

Preparation

I am going to start with a tonal study using black and white acrylic paint on A4.

Using a 2H pencil I lightly sketched the outline of the composition freehand, then began with the darkest tones painted a very rough representation of the composition I intend to do in more detail on a larger scale in oil. I didn’t really pay any attention to the hands and once I had completed this I straight away thought of The Scream by Edvard Munch.

https://www.edvardmunch.org/the-scream.jsp

I am working on A3 canvas paper with alkyd oils for their quicker drying properties. I decided to use a grid for this simply to ensure I got the basic proportions right. I then sketched the basic outline and then removed as much of the grid as possible as I don’t want to be constrained by it if I feel adjustments need to be made.

Using a dilute mix of the oils with sansodor solvent I laid down a basic layer of colour.I chose not to work with a coloured ground but straight onto the paper. For some reason, coloured grounds don’t work well for me. I want some areas of the background to stay as white as possible to reflect the light coming in from the window behind Jo.

I feel that I had a better likeness at drawing stage and have lost it a little with the under painting. I think the left eye is a little high and will need some adjustment.

A new day and I decided to readjust the features and so painted out the face and repainted with a slightly more purple hue.

Standing back I have realised that I have completely misjudged the tones; possibly as a result of painting on the white ground. At the moment her face is almost the same tone as the light coming through the window behind her and I need to drastically darken the skin. I also feel that I need to warm the skin tones up as, at the moment she is looking a little pale and ‘mask like’.

I darkened the skin tone but now feel I have made everything too red. I also feel I am getting a little too hung up on getting an accurate likeness at this early stage. In order to try to achieve a better colour balance I am going to work on the light background and dark hair which I hope will help with the mid tones and hues later.

I began with the white window frames and then put in a rough impression of the sunlit foliage from the tree outside the bedroom window. The walls are actually white, but the bright sun was making them appear a very pale green. I think the green is not helping the skin tone as the red is being emphasised. Jo’s hair is a very dark purple so I used a mix of ultramarine and raw umber to reflect this with little highlights of pale blue to give an impression of strands of hair. I feel the painting is starting to become more tonally balanced however I have a lot of colour correcting to do.

Stepping back from the painting, I still feel constrained by the lack of likeness and don’t think I am going to feel relaxed enough to tackle the skin tones until the likeness is there. I have therefore decided to paint out the features and start again.

I redefined the shape of the face with a little raw sienna and using this with a little ultramarine I redrew the eyes and mouth. I am still not quite there with it but feel it is going in a better direction. My pallet is getting very messy.

I am going to start again with a limited pallet of cadmium red, yellow, ultramarine, burnt sienna and titanium white to try to establish the correct skin tones.

Starting with her body I adjusted the hue to a much browner skin tone. There are areas of the skin that are reflecting green and Jo’s face is still a little too pink and is, at present, looking disconnected from the rest of her body but I now want the paint to dry a little before I start correcting and adding in detail.

A couple of days later I and I decided to adjust the tonal values. It is fairly late in the evening and I didn’t have a lot of time so I quickly painted the shadows under the arms much darker. I was still not happy with the skin tone so I added some red colour. It was at this stage I knew something was drastically wrong so I stopped for the evening.

 

Correcting mistakes

I have now been looking at this painting for a couple of days and today at work I was chatting with Jo about what a disaster it is and how I may have to scrap it, ask for an extension and start again. This evening I decided to give it one more chance and had a look online for ideas as to how to correct muddy skin tones. I found one blog that talked about how many classical artists used to use a monochrome underpainting; Verdaccio is a greenish-tinged underpainting which can bring out the vibrancy of flesh tones and Grisaille which is a grey underpainting. Whilst I hadn’t done this I did wonder if I could use the existing paint I had applied as a tonal underpainting and use it as a base for a more lively flesh tone. I also thought back to my favourite painting of this part, the three faces of Jack where I used yellow, orange and red to create a bright painting. I think I have become too hung up on trying to make this painting look realistic and think I need to be more ‘painterly’ and expressive in my brush strokes and choice of colour.

I started by mixing some almost pure pink and applied it to the arms and shoulders, then added some yellow. A further addition of white to the mix helped to lift some of the areas which reflect the light. I then decided to get some details in the facial features and concentrated on the eyes and lips. I am particularly happy with the way the eyes have turned out.

A little ultramarine added to the flesh tone previously mixed made a grey/green which I used for some of the shadowing around the eyes, face, hands and shoulders. This greenish tinge straight away seemed to lift the colours, green being the opposite of red on the colour wheel and suddenly the painting seemed to regain some life as opposed to looking dull and muddy as it had an hour ago.

I am again going to pause here for the evening. There is still a long way to go, much more detail to be added and a lot of correcting, particularly around the hands which aren’t quite right at the moment. I feel like I have just been through a massive learning curve tonight and am very pleased I didn’t give in to the temptation to abandon this portrait.

Final Painting – ‘Josephine’

My final day on this painting as I have run out of time and the assignment is now due to my tutor this week. I lightened up the skin and face with a cream paint and softened the shadows with the addition of a little burnt umber. Some definition to the hair paying attention to the slightly lighter area at the crown and the fingers. I added the distorted reflection of the bevelled edge of the mirror and finally her ring.

I could probably tinker with this for hours but I have made the decision to leave it here. From being very disappointed and unhappy with the painting a short while ago, I have to confess I am quite pleased with how it has turned out. More importantly Jo really likes it (I am pretty sure she is being honest!)

Reflection on Assignment

Use of Colour and Medium

I chose to do this portrait in oil paint. Initially my reasoning was because of its blending qualities and the fact that I feel more comfortable with this medium. This did however go against me at first as my attempts to make a realistic skin tone turned very muddy. It was only at a much later stage when I abandoned the blending and started to apply areas of different colours in a more ‘painterly’ manner that I felt I was beginning to rescue the picture.

The colours I have used are opposites on the colour wheel; pinky reds with pale green, purples and yellows. I have incorporated this theme through all areas of the painting, from Jo herself to the background and I think it hangs together fairly well.

Composition and context

As documented above, I spent a long time deciding on the composition. I wanted to portray a more vulnerable side of Jo and during our modelling session we tried numerous poses. The idea of using a mirror came to me very early and my research into artists who had used this was extremely helpful in preparation. After deciding that I wanted to paint a portrait as defined in the dictionary, this head and shoulders image was the obvious choice. I like the way the back of Jo’s head frames the left hand side of the painting and leads the eye to her reflection. I do feel that the most successful part are the eyes which I find I am drawn to. I feel I have captured an almost anxious or worried look on her face, she even looks a little sad. I do feel that this painting is the strongest I have done so far insofar as context is concerned.

Mark Making and Contrast of Line and Tone

This painting evolved over a number of layers, each time the layer was not quite right. I eventually abandoned the numerous attempts to get an accurate skin tone. I was very aware that because it was a very bright sunny day, the light streaming in from the window behind cause Jo’s face to be much darker in contrast. The muddy colours I was producing needed brightening up, and it was at this stage I decided to make the skin a little more abstract and interesting but still being faithful to the tone of the whole composition.

Form and Experimentation

From the limited background you can see, I feel there is a sense of depth in the painting and the bevelled edge of the mirror, together with the back of her head help to show that we are actually looking at a reflection. My favourite part of this painting is Jo’s face, particularly her eyes. I have managed to capture them accurately and, despite the addition of green, pink and orange, have achieved a pretty good likeness. Experimenting with different poses and making plenty of sketches was a very important part of the decision making process. There are a number of situations I could have turned into a painting but, despite some earlier reservations, I am pleased that I persevered with this painting. I still feel that some of the areas of skin, particularly around her shoulders, is not quite right and her hand on the far right could be a little more delicate.

Reflection on my progress so far…

I have found part 3 to be really interesting and very challenging. At the beginning I was still debating whether to change to the Painting pathway. This section of the course has reinforced that I will be staying with the drawing pathway. I think there are elements which have slightly dented my confidence in my painting ability, particularly when I am struggling to lay down paint in the manner I want, or find a colour to suit the subject. I do however feel like I have learnt a lot in this section and have eventually come out of it with two reasonable paintings.

Demonstration of technical and visual skills and quality of outcome

I have tried to do plenty of figure drawing sketches throughout this part to enhance my observational skills of the human figure. In exercise 3 of part 1, I think the tonal study of the seated figure was quite successful.

All my self-portraits were pretty dreadful, none a particularly good likeness. I think my paintings are a bit of a mixed bag; some awful, some acceptable and a couple which go some way to achieving my intentions. My favourite painting of the whole of this part was the picture conveying character, the three faces of Jack. All three have captured his likeness and different expressions and I am pleased that I was able to achieve this.

Demonstration of creativity

Again I will refer to my painting of Jack. The brief was to convey character through facial expression and I decided to challenge myself with a combined triple portrait which I feel was very successful. I also like the composition of my assignment; painting a reflection rather than a straight head and shoulders portrait.

Whilst the three paintings I did for the exercise creating mood and atmosphere are bad likenesses, I did enjoy experimenting with the paints, particularly with the palette knife.

Context reflection

I recognise the importance of research and am starting to find it an invaluable aid to my painting. As well as the research documented on this blog as part of the coursework, I have watched a number of YouTube demonstrations and read articles giving advice on how to achieve results that you would like. This was particularly helpful during my assignment when I had many failed attempts to correct the skin tone. With regard to the research of other artists, I am trying to begin to elaborate and delve deeper in to the artists intentions and techniques. I think this can be seen in my research into figures in interiors.

On the whole I think my paintings have got better as I have progressed through this part. I feel like I have learnt a lot about my process and approach to a painting. I am rarely happy with quick paintings done for some of the exercises, preferring a more finished work. I am also pleased that I have developed a better understanding of how to work with acrylics.