Anna

New Faces

So the camel addiction cold turkey has finished (how many strangely unmixed metaphors can an English teacher put into one sentence?) with a second visit to Pyndan Camel Tracks, ostensibly to find out the No Name's name (she's called Anna, a veteran of 17 years with Marcus there), and catching them all around at feeding time so got up close and personal with the youngest member (8month old Milo) and his, currently untrained, mum (Mulga, after Mulga Flats where Marcus collected her).  It's a kind of a diptych, two square canvasses of the same size so can sit together or separately.  Had some fun trying to get the scale approximately right and will enjoy playing around with the family likeness that's really apparent 'in the flesh'.

Also pushing on with the portraits: Lesley after a life session last wednesday, and a bit more with the light and shadow on face and arms of Jim (still not sure where I'm going with the rest of it:  almost want to scrub it back to make it more sketchy in the shirt area, but will finish the glazed bits before deciding.

the camel with no name

gestures

worked out why I'm enjoying these 'more than a face' portraits:  how shoulders, hands, stance etc create a gesture or mannerism that offers other ways into the character of the person painted.

 And yes, the hands and feet are meant to be bigger.  Something I've been messing around with at life drawing and seemed to be the right way to go with Lesley (tho still changing my mind about the clothing)

elastic time

painted two things today.  Each took a similar amount of time:  beginning the second of my 'mask' series, and working on tones and chroma in the Jim portrait. Fast, slow? Or just the nature of different stages of a piece.  Mmmm.

Lesley from Life and Pix

Wednesdays at 4ish I head to Gap Rd where the lovely Lesley has agreed to sit for me: I'm relishing the opportunity of painting mainly from life (with some prep work and other bits and pieces between sessions).
I played with a small head on board last week, then messed around at home with chino graph pencils, then turps, then oil pastels, then more turps, to, as it were, find my way around her head.  I want to have a full length sitting pose, so took a couple of shots before I left and worked out a sketch idea that I'll take with me this Wednesday and see where we go from there.  The equally lovely Stella Spaniel+ will, I think, become an integral part of the piece (she can't quite believe her luck of having her head scratched for a whole hour at a time . . .)

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