A few years ago a portion of my practice was portraits, commissioned (sometimes) or casual (often). As time went by I painted life portraits of perhaps twenty or thirty sitters. In addition some of my easel time went to sketching human faces as a way to study physiognomy and understand facial relationships. Some of those portrait sketches were from photos, some from life.
 |
"Andy," oil on panel, 8x6
|
Most portrait sketches are discarded, painted over, or thrown out. But a few seemed worth saving. Here are a couple. The first is from a well-known photo of the individual. "Andy" is done on a very small gessoed board which had something else painted on it in the beginning. Warhol's pale angularity, false fright wig, and acerbic personality interested me. The palette was simply whatever oil paint I had on the palette that seemed to work together. The slashing brushwork and thicker paint application were done as a study.
 |
"Hockney," oil on panel, 8x6
|
This second painting, a portrait sketch of the enormously famous British painter David Hockney, was also done very quickly simply to study the shape of his face and features. This was also a gessoed panel, but blank white until I spread a warm red-ochre intonaco with a big brush. Using a large filbert I sketched features, cap, and tie, contrasting warms with cools.
 |
"John," oil on panel, 14x11
|
This sketch of John Lennon, also from a photo that I saw online, was pretty spontaneous. The photo was from his post-Beatles time, complete with circular granny glasses. This was painted with a severely limited palette of white, black and raw umber, ochre and red. The panel had been used for another work and you can see it vaguely behind the head. The orange-red color in the glasses is underlying paint peeping through.
Cutting loose and trying new things is an important way of moving forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment