Exhibition 2019

Exhibition 2019

I have been busy trying to finish as many portraits of Gypsies as I can.

It has been a difficult year but I have managed to have seven oil on canvases in this year’s exhibition. 

I have introduced myself as the artist to everyone who took an interest so I could explain why I had painted these portraits and why I feel that I have a mission to fight against prejudice. You would be surprised at the interesting people I have talked to. One was an American pastor but I didn’t tell him that I was a Buddhist! 

A lot of people love the portrait of the deerhound and wanted to buy it so I explained that I work on commission. I may have a commission coming. 

One man walked in and said “That’s Walter” (behind the dog) before he saw the label. You can imagine how pleased I was that I had got that good a likeness. He knows Walter’s friend Sue so I was able to arrange that someone can pick up the portrait on Sunday and give it to her. Walter died a few months after I took the reference photos. 

The furthest portrait is a “work in progress” of the deerhound’s owner so it was a nice talking point. I told people that the dog was gazing into the boy’s eyes. 

I have another portrait that I would like to finish enough tonight to add it to the exhibition as another work in progress. If I can get the second boy’s face painted and leave their clothes as the underpainting, it will look fine. 

Maurice Quentin de la Tour

Maurice Quentin de la Tour

The portrait above is of Marie Fel. She was a popular singer, still performing when she was 65. De la Tour loved her and judging by her expression she loved him too.

When I first started to paint portraits, I tried acrylics but I didn’t get on well. I was going to a weekly evening class and one of the other artists brought in a box of pastels that her grandmother had given her. I took one look and knew I had found my medium.

A few weeks ago a man who is interested in the history of art asked me which artist inspired my portrait style. So I immediately said Maurice Quentin de la Tour. I got my book, “The French Pastellists of the Eighteenth Century” by Haldane Macfall, from the book case, and showed him the images.

I found the book in a second hand bookshop. The prints are tipped onto blank pages in the book and I feel lucky to have found the book with all the prints in place. So many of those old books had the prints removed to hang on the wall. The book includes many Eighteenth Century pastellists, but it is clear that Mr Macfall considered that de la Tour was the star.

I am inspired by Maurice Quentin de la Tour because of the liveliness of the expressions he portrays. Most of his portraits tell me as much about the artist as about the subject. It is obvious from their amused expressions that he was an entertaining and witty man. 

Most Eighteenth Century Portraits by famous oil painters look more like furnishings for their patrons’ mansions (chateaux?) than interesting individuals. I understand the desire of the patrons to want to present an image for posterity, but I don’t feel sad to think that I can never meet them. In de la Tour’s case I feel that I have already met them. So he inspired me to emulate him, not in wit but perhaps in kindness.

A lot of Maurice de la Tour’s portraits are in the Louvre. I haven’t been to Paris to see them but I have seen and appreciated a portrait of a young man in the National Gallery, London. It was in an obscure corner. Pastels are undervalued. 

His most famous portrait is the one of Madame Pompadour (below) but there are many to see at this link which is where I downloaded the images on this page. It is free to download the jpegs and you can buy prints of the portraits from the site.

The site is a wonderful resource for looking at great art: 

https://www.wikiart.org/en/maurice-quentin-de-la-tour

Five Portraits in Oils on Canvas

Five Portraits in Oils on Canvas

I haven’t been able to scan these Gypsy portraits because my house has been so untidy that the scanner was buried under clothes and kitchen rolls (unused of course) among other things. But recently I have put a lot of time into organising things to make my household easier to run so that I have more time and energy for painting. 

The scanner and printers are in my bedroom and I have moved a chest of drawers in there so I had somewhere to put the mess which was sitting on the scanner and the two printers. I am still moving things from one place to another but the bedroom is clear. I have moved my acryl gouache paints downstairs leaving just my coloured pencils next to my upstairs easel. 

So today I did a bit of scanning. Having looked at the portraits again after a few weeks I can see many places that they can be improved. I am not the first portrait painter to feel that way. 

Here’s the other four portraits:

Art in the Hills, Dufton

Art in the Hills, Dufton 

I have come back from the Private View of the art exhibition in the village hall at Dufton, Cumbria. 

It is a popular exhibition and I enjoy going to the private view and meeting so many artist friends. 

The photo above shows the three portraits that I put in this year: Arthur, Walter and Riley. 

I waited until the crowd was thinner to photograph them and I asked my friend to pose looking at them.

I met a friend, Sarah Reid, there and I took a photo of her by some of her pastels. I admire her pastels very much. Unfortunately my photos have not shown them at their best because of reflections on the glass. I did my best to improve them by playing with the dodge and burn tool in the Artstudio Pro app on my iPad and using the Pencil. So you can get an idea and go and look at her website for a better view. 

Sarah with her paintings 

Her website http://redrawstudios.co.uk/

Waiting for Varnish

Waiting for Varnish

I have completed another three portraits in the last couple of days. 

I have taken them upstairs for them to dry sufficiently to varnish them. I am using Exhibition Varnish. They can have their permanent coat of varnish after six months on top of the exhibition varnish.

The photo shows the portraits upside down, because I painted the bottoms last and the paint may come off on the shelf. I know that is obvious, but when I was studying at University I was told that if you don’t write the obvious things you lose marks. 

When it is safe to put them in my scanner I will take quality scans of them. 

Meanwhile I have two more portraits that are very nearly finished. In fact I meant to finish the lady in sunglasses today but I was working on her rather late last night and when I saw what I had done, I scraped it off! I had given her a dirty face. 

I am not going to make the mistake of working on any faces tonight but I think it will be safe for me to paint some sky backgrounds. 

Well That's Over!

 

Church Craft Fair

I would have liked a bit more warning about the craft fair, and having set to work on doing a couple of paintings for it, obstacles arose. Don't they always! So I only finished one painting which was design of a cheetah for a new bookmark. I am not happy with the finished result so I won't show you until I have done more painting on it and made it look as I wanted. The other painting I was working on was a portrait of a cat. I am going to get more work done on that one next week. I will share the work in progress of that one.

I set up a folding canvas with samples of my portraits on repositionable posters, and added some colourful small drawings, flyers, business bookmarks and cards.

I also ran a one day raffle in aid of the Church. The prize is a portrait by me. So I have a dog portrait to do. I know the dog. His name is Bentley and he is very cute. So I am a winner too.

The people who didn't win the raffle were not total losers. I included a 25% off voucher with every raffle ticket valid for one year. One lady is very interested in having a portrait of her horse.

It was a good weekend. I added the Conté portrait on the left on Saturday. I am glad I did as it was much admired. It is an old portrait, but I am still proud of it. 

The dog portraits and the baby portrait also got a lot of positive attention. Amateur and professional artists asked about my media.

There were a lot of jokes about my self portrait (on the right hand canvas). I did the self portrait for two reasons, and the relevant reason this weekend was to prove that I am good at getting a likeness. I explained to a few people that I had done more than one portrait from life using a mirror, and how difficult it is to maintain a pleasant expression while one is staring at oneself in a mirror.

One of the most enjoyable things about taking part in a craft fair, is making new creative friends and one had some interesting news for me. Her artist son is starting a gallery in the next town. So I am planning to do some still lifes in hopes that he will show them for me. 

Look out for the next post with an update on the portrait of Freyja, the cat. 

New plans

I have been building a new website for myself. I haven't uploaded it yet because I still need to do all the keywords and things. 

After not very careful consideration, I decided to use Blogger for my Artblog. It will make it easy to update. Perhaps I will upload new posts more often than in the past if I use such an easy platform. 

I am not going to delete the posts from my old website yet because I hope to be able to link to them. 

The software I am using to build my new website is Macaw. I like it very much. It produces very clean code and I have achieved exactly the simple look that I want. It makes responsive websites too. 

I hope that as the app evolves I will be able to produce my blog as part of my website. I could do it now but it would be complex to keep it in order as Macaw doesn't have folders yet. I am sure they will eventually. Hint hint!

I have other plans for the future. One is to put together a portfolio of equestrian art. I have been keen on that idea for a long time. Once I have a few more portraits of horses, I will make an equestrian art gallery on my website. For now horses are included in animals. 

My other plan is a very new one!

A new art gallery/coffee shop has opened locally. My friend twisted my arm to speak to the gallery owner. I wasn't expecting anything. It is difficult to exhibit portraits especially as once they are finished they are no longer in my possession.  But I took my iPad in to show my work. He liked the miniatures I have done of wild cats. I do them in pen and ink and then colour parts of the image. 

The trouble is that they are the size of playing cards and I think that is too small for a gallery. And I make them to give as presents to my daughters in law who both love cats. I just have one left which is the one above. 

So I spent the last two days going through my reference photos of tigers, lions,cougars and lynxes. I don't want to do them big. It would be too tedious to do a large pen and ink. So I will do some at 6 x 4 inches and see if the gallery will take them.