Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2013

Well, the Sky Arts program is about to start broadcasting - the series transmission date is 5th. November on Sky Arts 1. There have been several promos so far, and I have been featured scribbling over my paper...  I won't go into too much detail at this time - but I will do a weekly comment on the shows on this blog as they are transmitted.

Sky Arts promo from a telly!

Photo - thanks Chris Golya

I applied for the competition in order to experience the application process so that I could empathise with students who may be going through various application processes themselves - so I could advise. I am a Senior Lecturer and Course Leader at Portsmouth University - for Media Studies and Entertainment Technology. I never believed in a million years that my submission drawing would be selected. The on-line competition form asked for a self portrait - so this is the drawing I uploaded:

'My Menopausal Self' 2013

Compressed charcoal on Fabriano paper.

Photo - thanks Southsea Gallery

I anticipated that all the submissions would be by 'young emerging artists', and submissions would be completed in oil paints or acrylic - which is why I uploaded this one - as I thought it was too much outside their remit (mature woman, drawing)... but apparently I was wrong! I use a very simple and straightforward drawing technique which involves covering the paper/ground in charcoal, and then lifting the content out from it. I don't just use it for portraits - but it can be very effective.
Here's one I made earlier...

Jonty Stern (Big Brother contestant 2007) Museum speaker.

Compressed charcoal on Fabriano 2011 

Photo - thanks Ed Woodroffe

 For a piece of background about my creative practice here's a video made by some University of Portsmouth Film and Television students. I think they did a fantastic job. My partner Ed, Kev and myself did all the music too. (I like drumming and banging my bongos!)

Trudy a Portrait. Alex Sergei (Director) 2011

University of Portsmouth.

So please do keep coming back to this blog once the Sky Arts series starts to be shown..  and I will try and share the absolute terror and pressure of participating in the programme!! (only joking!!! - actually it was pretty tense!)

..Daedalus Ward Project continued...

Sp... have started to put he leaves and blossoms on the tree. This is has been quite a relaxing process - creating the textures and just adding simple bright colours. (Fig 1)

 

 
Figure 1
Then after adding lots of leaves and textures I start to overlay the colour.(Fig 2)

 
Figure 2

Then I simply add the blossom texture and colour as another layer. (Fig 3)

 Figure 3.

So I have added the warmer colours on the tips of the blossom. This will be extended in the next follow-on painting which will have far more warm colours added. As the work develops, warmer colours will be included in all the next paintings.

There will be apples!!! :)

Update for the Daedalus Ward Commission...

Well, the work is coming on now.. and the composition is continuing on to the second painting.. have started to accentuate this one - as it takes a departure from the first painting. This one is about the same tree during the spring. Consequently the colours are richer, the textures are more expressive and the work starts to take a life of its own...  I aim to start the third and fourth one together shortly and will finish all first four in the sequence together.

Figure 1

The pictures above (Fig.1) show the texture I am using for the next painting in the sequence. It is a lovely smooth texture paste that I put onto the canvas with palette knives. There is a strange relaxing quality to this action. I then have to wait for the texture to dry - I left it overnight, just to be sure - and then started adding the acrylic colour on top (Fig.2).

 
Figure 2.

Adding the acrylic colour onto the texture gives a little more depth and sense of the 'tree-ness' of the bark (fig 3.)

Figure 3.

However, this process also allows an anthropomorphic reading - by the viewer of the work - to the shape of the tree which gives it slightly more human qualities - which is what I am hoping for.

Figure 4.

So here (Fig 4) You can see the sequence of paintings. The winter composition is now leading onto the spring one. The spring painting is ready for leaves and blossoms - the details of how I complete that task will be in my next blog update.

The next stage of Magic and Logic...

The last couple of weeks have been so lovely and sunny - I have taken some time off for a break - and have also been getting on with the next stage of the paintings for the Daedalus Ward for dementia sufferers at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital. So - I took advantage of the sunny weather and visited the orchard again - this time to see the trees full of greenery and luscious red fruit. It was fantastic. It is so fascinating to see how the orchard has changed over the past few months - and this helps me develop the narrative of the paintings from my experiences at the orchard.

 

 

Setting the composition.

I have the basic composition of the first painting set - see previous blog posts. So in order to transfer the composition fairly accurately onto the other canvases, I have scaled the painting using standard copying techniques using a simple grid. (Fig 1)

Figure 1.

This was done quite easily using thread that I simply taped onto the canvas with even measured spacing.(Fig 2)

Figure 2.

I then draw the same grid onto the new canvas and transfer the image by drawing square by square.

This process will be completed across the remaining canvases for this specific series of paintings. It is important to keep the basic composition for all the paintings because I believe that in doing this, memory retention of the image is maximised from viewing one painting to the next; thus enabling the patient to retain some residual imprint of the image in their mind between viewing each canvas. These paintings are also about exercising the brain and mind as well as looking at (hopefully!) pleasing compositions and colourful textures. As a consequence of this, I will be completing all four canvases in this series together and at the same time as the initial composition and colours/textures have been worked out in the first painting. This will again bring an underlying continuity to the images even as they transform to portray the changing seasons. 

The remaining 3 canvases (of 7 for the whole commission) will be relaxed    landscapes/seascapes/weatherscapes painted in an entirely different way.