Dancer

A relatively simple watercolour for Christmas last year. This one has no gold leaf, no complicated under drawing, and no ink lines. It was purely a study of a woman dancing. This was a commission, and is postcard sized. I

Portrait of A. – forming the features

I had a day to myself when everything else was drying, and I put the Portrait of A back onto the easel. I’d already done the hair and jacket, but not completed them – they were on the canvas to

Portrait of A. – background

The gridded portrait was quick enough that I could get started on the background in the same day as I began the tonal sketch. I decided to go with the same lighting as in the train, and to lie about

Portrait of A. – gridding up.

I finished the tonal study of A. and went straight on to squaring up, transfering a composite of images onto the canvas as one. The jacket and pose from one photo along with the face from another will give me

Portrait of A*.

Sometimes in the life of an artist there comes a time when they just have to terrify passing civilians by asking, “Do you mind if I paint you?” For extra points, you can then tell them why, but that usually

Planning a Painting: Edges and Padding

My first stage in planning a painting is staring at a rectangle for a while. Usually, this is in a sketch book, and then I cover it with marks. What I am doing is working out where bits of the

Personal Critique: Mangling Holiday Pictures – Part 4

This is not, strictly speaking, a holiday picture. However, it is from the same artist, so it comes in by the door marked ‘holiday’ and gets treated as such. It’s a portrait. I’m good at portraits. I know exactly how