Summer Assignment 2014 - Portraits

Visiting The National Portrait Gallery

These are sketches I have made of portraits that I was most interested in when visiting the National Portrait Gallery this summer.

The drawing (top left) was done by Paul Wright and named Simon Armitage, I was interested in this painting as it expressed a lonely, remorseful person; I also liked the way the person was not looking directly at the artists but slightly away and to the floor.

Amy Blue was painted by Marlene Dumas and is the painting top right, I was interested by this painting as it was heavily painted blue and was very cropped, leaving the face in this portrait at an unusual angle.The painting bottom left was by Frank Auerback, I really liked how he used a scribbly effect to create a portrait of a face. Even though this portrait is in a scribbly style you can still see that this face is portraying a mournful emotion.

The final portrait from the National Portrait Gallery is called Susan Green Field and was painted by Tom Phillips (bottom right) this painting interested me as it used a speckled effect and a lined effect across areas of the portrait. This portrait has been painted with the person looking directly at the artist which I think dramatizes the painting.

A study of a portrait painting

This Portrait is called Amy Jade Winehouse ‘Amy Blue’ and is painted by Marlene Dumas.

Dumas has used thick bold brush strokes and has heavily emphasised the blue colour, she has added depth and a ‘3D like effect’ by adding light colours to areas of the face.

This portrait was painted onto canvas using oil paints and is aprox A4 size.

Practical studyMy self portrait was loosely inspired by Marlene Dumas’ Amy Blue, I tried to tie in the use of the blue paint into my self portrait by shading areas of the face using blue tones.However if I were to re–do these self portraits I would try different angles and possibly experiment with backgrounds.

Practical study

Study of artists – Marlene Dumas

Amy Blue has been painted in a very unique style, using blue as the base colour for the face and occasionally using blacks and greys for the eyes, lips and eyebrows. I think Dumas has used quite thick and bold brush strokes to create a heavy, well coloured look, she has also applied the paint rather thick onto the page. This painting was not very big when I saw it in the National Portrait Gallery, yet Dumas has coloured every part of the page and not used a background

The painting is portraying a dark, sadistic emotion and using the colour blue across the whole painting could have been done purposely by Dumas to give the painting this remorseful feel.

My opinion and an evaluation of the self-portrait projectAs a whole I found this project quite difficult, as I struggled to get my proportions right when drawing out the faces, so if I were to improve my self portraits I would try to correct the proportions of the face.

When trying to incorporate the style of Marlene Dumas into my self portraits, I felt I struggled to use bold brush strokes when painting my self portraits therefore my acrylic paint looked ‘watery’ on my canvas, therefore I would try and be more bold with my colours and brush strokes if I re-did my self portraits.

Overall I was pleased with my brief sketches of portraits that interested me when I visited the National Portrait Gallery, these were just simple pencil drawings and I was pleased with the outcomes as they allowed me to experiment drawing in different styles as the artists in the National Portrait Gallery had.

In conclusion there would be a lot of areas of this project that I would like to improve on as I found this to be one of my most difficult briefs, however I did learn about portraits and gained confidence when painting portraits.

Professional Practice Case Study

Professional Practice: John Stillman:

• When Stillman is given an initial brief by a client he will meet them in person to discuss what their requirements are and then if a certain view or landscape is required, Stillman will actually visit the area and take numerous photographs to make sure he paints it accurately. Once this is done then Stillman has to agree on the size of the painting along with the framing and price of the work, therefore this will ensure the clients full satisfaction.• John Stillman is a self – employed artist so it is up to him to manage his time, plan the paintings and all the projects he is working on as he usually works on more than one project at a time, therefore the size of the painting and difficulty of the painting all have to be accounted for when Stillman is managing his time. • As Stillman is a self – employed artist he is solely responsible for commissions going well and running to plan, therefore it can prove difficult for him to plan a painting, manage the timing of the painting (so it is ready for the agreed deadline with the client) and keep the painting within the cost bracket that Stillman and the client had decided upon, therefore if any problems occur within these areas Stillman has to personally contact the client and brief them on the situation as soon as possible, to avoid any unsatisfied clients. When Stillman is exhibiting his works he leaves it up to the gallery owners to negotiate prices with the clients as this is their job, although they are always respectful of the artists, so Stillman trusts them to negotiate a fair price.• Stillman has a very good work ethic and when working for yourself, you have to be very self-motivated; therefore he ends up working seven days a week. His usual day would start at 8AM, then he will have an hour off for lunch, then work until 6PM, however if Stillman is under pressure to finish numerous paintings due to high demand he will have to re-visit the studio in the evening and wok until the early hours, therefore emphasising how motivated you really have to be to be a professional artist and the sacrifices you have to make.• When Stillman is developing ideas into final outcomes it depends hugely on what the weather is doing as he prefers to work on site, as this allows him to paint from life and for his paintings to be more accurate in areas such as the lighting and shading. When developing ideas he also has to consider how commercial the idea is as if he was to paint landscapes that no one is interested in he would gain no sales, whereas if he chooses more popular landscapes, such as the River Thames, these paintings would sell as they are far more commercial.• Stillman uses very basic materials as he sticks to oil paints, canvas and a variety of brushes, the reason he is consistent with his working materials is that this will allow him to continue to learn about his materials and it will also help him develop his unique style which he is recognised for. However producing his work is different as he is always painting something new and of varying sizes, therefore the approach to each piece is slightly altered, although he does still portray his unique style.• Stillman responds to the constraints that affect his work by listing the requirements of the gallery that he is going to be exhibiting in and then not adding any more ‘unnecessary’ work to this list as he feels if under too much pressure his work will suffer and not be as good as he knows it can be. However he does still surprise himself when some pieces he paints far quicker than expected, whilst others take far longer.• As mentioned earlier Stillman has to paint scenes he thinks are more commercial as this will help them sell far quicker than scenes that are less commercial. Stillman feels that the best paintings come from when the artist personally wants to paint the scene and this, by chance, becomes very popular with his clients as he may have not seen the scene as a ‘commercial scene’ that people want painted, yet it becomes very popular and he has requests for more paintings of that area. When it comes to galleries however, they usually have certain topics they want the artists to stick to as these are generally guide lines that the gallery thinks their public are going to be more inclined to buy, therefore Stillman tries to stick closely to the guide lines in order to sell as many paintings as possible.