Amy & Lockie - the selfie that has been immortalised in an Oil painting!

Amy and Lockie

" Wow- it is amazing....

 It is SO good."

Deborah

Her children were mucking about taking selfies in the back of the car and she really liked this selfie idea. 
Deborah had the idea of a having a portrait created for many years but just couldn't find the right artist until she contacted me. What a fun idea!

 

We decided to alter the colours a little from this photo as it wasn't very accurate and Deborah liked the warmer tones I used in the portrait. The reference photo also doesn't show their eye colours very well so I enhanced those in the painting.

So you can see the size here is the unfinished painting  on my easel.

My palette is approx 30 x 40cms  in size.

Have your own children's selfie immortalised in a painting!

My portrait of Jeremy & Django ( A winning team) wins an award at the CA Brown Artshow

I don't enter many art shows these days as I don't do enough original paintings to enter. Paintings generally have to be for sale so I can't ( and wouldn't) enter a commissioned portrait.

 I've won an award in each of the art shows I've recently entered.

This portrait is still a work in progress too! I fine tune things every time I get a chance.

"A winning Team "

c .7 x 1m

Oil on gallery wrap canvas 

The portrait is in a slightly bolder style than most of my portraits as being a larger painting I also want it to have impact from a distance. Top photo is the most accurate colourwise to the horse in the actual portrait.

One of my portraits has won an award at the 2015 Wollombi Emerging Artists Awards.

My portrait 'Homeward Bound" Just won a merit award in the 2015 Wollombi Emerging Artists awards!
Well so far it's won a 1st prize and now an award.
To me I'm not really an emerging artist as I've been around for 17 years but the awards are open for any artists that haven't had a solo exhibition in a regional gallery.
I only create one painting a year other than commissions ( and practise portraits at the group) so that's not bad!

The creation of Alex's memorial portrait

 Memorial portrait of Alex
30 x 40cms
Oil on gallery wrap canvas
" It's beautiful. You got her nose etc just perfect!!! Looks more like Alex than the photo!!! Tyler loves it too! So natural and Alex.
Makes me teary!!!
Lanise

 

The portraits creation-

Alex was 23 when she was killed in a car accident in Australia shortly after returning from overseas.
Lanise is having me create a portrait to remember her in better times. 

I drew a sketch for her portrait today  but we have decided to use another photo so I'll draw another tomorrow. Below is the first photo I drew .

I was initially going to use this video still photo which really captures her character  but it was just too blurry.  I was guessing with her eye shape and smile and something just wasn't right in the sketch.

We were going to use extra photos to help but especially with people you have to be so accurate to capture them and a clear photo makes that so much easier. If I can see the shape of their eyes / mouth etc I can get a much better portrait.

 Lovely but not clear enough.
We decided to use this sharper photo and I would open her eyes more.

  It's appropriate that I am starting the portrait this week as I just found out it would have been her birthday this week. Her birthday was the day after mine!

  I've started the acrylic underpainting-

 Lanise said she liked a background I'd used in a previous portrait so I did a version of this in Alex's. I kept it a little subtle so it didn't overwhelm her.

Starting to do the tones on her face ( shades of darks and lights).

The way the light hits her face is what builds up her face structure and gives a likeness. It is often very subtle especially in younger women without wrinkles and has to be correct or you don't get a likeness. At this stage it's only rough as I know I will be coming back over with Oil and refining. Acrylic can give harsh edges but Oil gives lovely soft ones.

 Looking a bit spooky here with the red eyes and green lips! lol's. 

I knew how they would change as I progressed but as  I posted an early pic on FB I warned Lanise saying not to worry as she would change!

 Here I am happy enough to decide to change to Oil. I posted this stage with B +W version on my FB page.

If you get the tones right you can get away with almost any colours. Her mouth and eyes are still 'raw' and unfinished but I know they will be altered with Oil so I'm not worried.

 

 B + W version of  the earlier stage

 

 Now to the oil . 

The first thing I do is get rid of those evil eyes! This is still a bit rough but I ended up not changing them that much. 

Sometimes you just get it early on and to fiddle would lose something.

 Filling in the tones of her face-

 I want the portrait to read naturally from a distance but be interesting close up just not all boring pinks and creams. This is where I use the knowledge gained from painting from life - the colours my eyes can see in flesh. You can tell an artist who only works from photos as their work  often looks cutout with pasty pink and cream flesh tones.

Using more colours brings my portraits to life and makes them look much more realistic.

 

Eyes and mouth roughly done although I haven't painted her teeth. 

Teeth need to be subtle or can look garish and cartoonish. 

 

Here I've painted her mouth although I will be refining things more as I go along. 
I've painted the background it's final colour so I can  adjust the rest of the portrait to suit. It tends to be hard to photograph with a sheen so I have to take the photos from a bit of an angle. The tape is to ensure she doesn't fall forward into my wet paint palette!

 I had that happen to an almost finished wet portrait once and it wasn't fun so now I take no chances.
 Starting to do her hair.

 Almost there- just need to do some work on her shirt and suggest her necklace  a little more. I want the portrait to be alive and fresh and not overworked and tight.

Below-  Finished!

Hugh - This weeks 2.30hr practise portrait from a model

Hugh

25 x 30cms 

Oil on canvas
I haven't been going regularly and felt a bit out of practise but I was really happy with Hugh's portrait.I feel I have captured something of his nature.
I also accidently learnt a new technique.I always struggle to find colours that bring the darker areas of the portrait to life but still retain the form/ likeness. The shadows in his portrait are thin and luminous. I'd like the portrait to be a bit more colourful and could alter a few minor things but for a quick study I think it worked well!

Below - partially done..

I paint on fairly smooth canvas that I buy in a roll and cut to suit.I like this as I don't have much space so I can store the finished paintings compactly in layers in a draw.

 The start! Most artists wouldn't show you this stage as it's pretty bad! A painting constantly evolves and I am continually changing things until I am happy with the likeness and overall affect.

 

 I've added some in between tones / shades to build up his face. This is a difficult angle both for the artist and model. You need to get the profile shape just right and it's easy for the model to move slightly so in one session you may see a lot of his far eye and in the next none. If you just blindly copy whats in front of you end up with a distorted portrait. Luckily Hugh was very good and kept the same angle although I had already taken a photo to help me get the correct angle in case he didn't.

 I realised he needed more forehead so the image grew as I extended his forehead onto the tape that held the canvas onto the paper..I always seem to do my best works on the worst canvas's! grr 

Below-  Here I've started getting some of the darker areas in and refined his profile as I started the background.

 After a break I decided his general head shape was wrong and his nose and far eye needed adjusting. This is probably about an hour into the portrait.

Below- Finally I'm happy enough with the blue acrylic underpainted likeness to start going over the top with Oil.

 

 I love painting with Oil as I find it  has more guts and the darks stand out so much better than the acrylic.

 Technically you are supposed to work from dark to light with Oil but I wanted to do the fun bits first ! I did all the highlights ( lightest bits). For once we had flattering lighting.

 

I usually have trouble deciding on a colour for the shadow side of faces. When I paint for myself I like to use as much colour as possible.Today I accidentely came across a technique which really worked- I only put a thin layer over the blue and it looks more transparent. Although not as colourful as I'd like it's a useful technique to add to my arsenal.

 Closeup of the shadowed cheek area

Almost there! One of the other artist said I should leave the blue peaking through and although I was tempted I needed to subtly tone areas down. The white horizontal line at the top is where I've painted over the tape holding the canvas on.

 

Here he is again 'finished'. I've subtly refined his lips to capture a fleeting expression , adjusted his chin , added light bits on his hair and generally bought it all together.

The 'Bullock mural' in the Cessnock Advertiser 13th August 2015

The boy roos are chasing the girls so spring must be just around the corner!

Must be coming towards Spring. I was inside drawing up the Pug portrait and there was a hell of a ruckus.. The pack of male roos had a female cowering under the front verandah trying to get away.
The biggest male was under there with her grunting and fighting off others.The whole verandah was shaking!I hope the air conditioning unit survived.
I went out and yelled at him and threw my hands at him from the safety of the verandah and he hopped off a bit but soon came back. He was pretty single minded so I decided to play it safe and leave it to them.. Luckily it's died down now.

 Above - the pretty cause of all the ruckus