Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Nearly Finished, Ron

Had a couple of big days at the easel last weekend and got through the 'I've completely messed this up' phase with my 'Ron's Landscape' portrait of Ron for this year's Portrait of a Senior Territorian Award. Even nearly missed the plein air session on Sunday afternoon out at Simpson's Gap, but managed to get there for the last hour of light, and the Sav Blanc afterwards of course. Though poor Ron had the disconcerting experience of sitting chatting over a glass of wine with me peering rather intently at certain features of the right side of his head ('umm the ear's more dented than I'd thought and that crease alongside his mouth is really quite prominent . . . ') Luckily he paints portraits too, so was as comfortable about my distractedness as one could be. Just leaving it now for this week, having a look at it on saturday to do any final plays with highlights and tonal contrasts and then the delights of signing it. There's 3 of the Studio 12 artists entering this year (Ron and Iain Campbell) plus a couple of other artists I know from town; so it'll be a good showing from the centre up in Darwin this year. Now if I can only organise some workshop the department need to send me to up there during the exhibition . . .

No comments: