Ali
Oil on canvas 2014
40 x 30 cm
Showing 1–16 of 23 results
This portrait was begun at Travis Seymore’s Barnes Atelier and has been re-worked twice, each time with pretty radical changes. Looking at it again I think the choppiness of values could be resolved slightly differently. But I’m leaving it alone (for now). It is so true that paintings are never finished, only abandoned!
Oil on panel 2018 30 x 20cm 12 x 8in
This was the first work selected by Royal Society of Portrait Painters at the Mall Gallery 2017
Oil on linen 2017 30 x 25cm 12 x 10in
Begun at Angel. After completing our Bargues, (you can search for what this means, if you would like to) we were allowed to join an untutored* Portrait evening as long as we each sat for the class for 3 sessions. That is 3 session of 2 hours each week, with breaks, which come after 6+ hours on our feet in the studio. Sounds good, but keeping still is pretty hard work. Brian was perhaps a bit impatient to get back to his work – the pose was so typical of him and expressive and I knew I would want to make a finished painting the type of which is simply not possible within a total of 6 hours. So I took the best photograph I could and over the years often looked at the painting knowing eventually it would be finished. When that time just occurred (out of the blue) in 2020 it was wonderful to continue. I wonder if I had to wait until I felt I had more experience. Whatever it was, The Royal Society of Portrait Painters liked it as it was selected for their 2022 show.
*I must add here that Jered Wozicki very kindly would stay and give us each some of his superb advice and guidance.
Oil on canvas 2022 42 x 38cm 17 x 15 inches
As part of the academic program four different casts are painted. What is a cast? It is a copy, usually, of a masterpiece made by a master artists. The cast is made in plaster of Paris and is a matt, white sculpture making it ideal for the study of forms in monochrome. As I write I find each word needs explaining. Monochrome? One usually thinks of black and white but for the purpose of oil painting, black and white are not used as the result would be a painting that looked blue. And why is that? Because black is a member of the blue family.
In making this painted study, we learn how to mix and use a very limited palette of colours to make a painting that looks exactly like a three dimensional sculpture. And that painted sculpture looks white with shadows and nuances of light. There will be a Journal on limited palettes soon.
This Cast was my final one of four. It is complex and large made from the original by Michelangelo. Do note the similarity of the beautiful face to his famous statue of ‘David’ which is housed in Galleria dell’Accademia, with a reproduction in front of Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Giuliano was a member of the ruling Medici family, was joint ruler of Florence with his brother Lorenzo and was murdered in Florence Cathedral on Easter Sunday in 1516. That is certainly a very brief synopsis but to see the 1.68 metre seated, original visit Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo, Florence – a place of great splendour and interest – go early!
Oil on linen 2012 94 x 69cm 37 x 27in in a splendid, bespoke Florentine frame
A charming face though there is varying views whether it is a young boy or a girl. Whoever they are the look of happiness is so charming as sculptures by Jean Baptiste Carpeaux so often are . He is know as a sculpture of the Second Empire and how I would love to have a fine replica of The Genie of the Dance, another charmed portrait. In fact The Met in New York have an exhibition Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast . I leave you to browse. For me this beautiful face seems full of light, in marble it must be glorious. And this particular painting was the result of the final Summer Workshop I joined at Angel Academy of Art. I had been going to Angel for one of their wonderful two weeks Summer Workshops every summer for 6 years and this one, led by Jay Bloom, clinched it. I went home and spoke with my husband, as I did every year, “Oh I would love to be a full time student” . And then I saw – various circumstances meant that we could do it. And in January 2010 I became a full time student on the Four Year Program at Angel. There is a lot in a painting!
2009 56 x 36cm 22 x 14in unframed
Oil on canvas 2007
72 x 54 in (140 x 185 cm)
It is a long tradition to make Master Copies or particular paintings to discover how the artist worked. This masterful way allows me to absorb the skills, qualities and in fact to see the nuances as well as the broader aspects of a painting. I’m pretty sure I make small changes of my own which result in a translation, no matter how closely I try to reproduce what is before me – either in a photograph, onscreen or best of all – in life.
Oil on linen mounted board 2014 41 x 31 cm
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