28 June 2011

Return of the Living Dead...

...aka my latest self portrait...

A couple of weeks ago I went to an excellent demo by Hashim Akib, having been very kindly invited by fellow arty blogger and all-round lovely lady Pat Elliot (thanks Pat :-)), and this is my first effort, having been well inspired.
It's acrylic on canvas, 10 by 14".


Despite having the appearance of an animated corpse, I'm actually fairly pleased with this. When Hashim Akib did his demo, he started off by laying on paint without any kind of drawing - he then built on this, looking for shapes, shadows and highlights, only getting 'fiddly' (and not too fiddly at that) right at the finish. His portrait style is a lot more colourful than I've managed here, but I was fairly happy with this for a starter. Painted from life (using a mirror) with flat brushes, no drawing. I did have some lovely juicy colours early on but managed to lose them along the way...

So, it's been a confidence booster in that I know I can paint without needing to draw first; for my next attempt I'll aim for something a bit warmer and less deathly!

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for the compliment, Sharon :) xx
    I really like this portrait.. it has mood and character - and you did a brilliant job with no drawing! I know, I've met you :)

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  2. Hey this is a wonderful portrait! I love all the colours you used! I know it is awkward to paint yourself, I did it a while ago.

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  3. Your word "deathly" could be my word "dreamy," a much better word to describe this work. Very nice first try. I'm sorry I missed his demonstration. His work looks terrific and I would have liked to see just how much fiddling he actually did since I tend to over fiddle.

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  4. Sharon, this is a very expressive self-portrait. Hope to see more from you. :)

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  5. Thanks all, so nice to hear your thoughts! Will be doing more along these lines for sure.

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