Of all the art works I’ve done over the last 70 years, the ones I’ve had least satisfaction with are portraits. Thankfully when I think of all the art I’ve looked at there are very few portraits by other artists that really please me as well. The Uffizi gallery with all those virgin and child, cherub filled pieces is by far the least enjoyable gallery I have ever been in. That’s personal of course. I am not even very keen on photographs of people.
Oddly an early pencil sketch I did of my grandad, really captured the subject and may still be adorning some wall up in Barrow-in-Furness. On the other hand I have been failing to get the scene below right for at least 20 years, mainly because of the singer’s mouth. In general the difficulty of portraits varies from side profile old men through a scale to full body young child. Animals seem to be easier, though horses are less so.
While this one from 1967, done with shoe brush and polish still works better for me.
Some people are such natural mark makers that they can capture people with real economy (Hockney, Daumier). Other artists chose a different tack. They concentrate on capturing character, movement and a sense of life. For me that is usually more successful to look at than more literal works. Below are some of the pictures I have on my wall, because they inspire me without making me a copyist.
Last night we did an exercise, thanks Wayne, doing 6 minute sketches,using different techniques, from B&W photos. I used the same photo each time, which is at the bottom. I think I’ve got the order last from first at the top. There was also a last one using the wrong hand, but I excused myself that one. For me the charcoal one struck me, as it started out well, with the hair, but the more I got into delicate detail the more my shaky hands betrayed me.
