LOCKDOWN PORTRAITS Part 3 - A Final Look
- jamestrueman ESCAPE ART
- Apr 1, 2022
- 4 min read
Series 3 of Portrait Artist of the Week returned in February 2021. Following the same four hour format in this final series, four celebrities sat for artists from Sky's Portrait Artist of the Year television programme. The live broadcasts took place on Facebook for the first three hours. Then the last hour was joined by audiences from the Sky Arts channel.
21 February 2021
Nicola Coughlan - actress
The first celebrity guest in this series was actress and star of TV drama Bridgerton Nicola Coughlan, who sat for the artist Alastair Faulkner.
For my portrait of Nicola I worked on a canvas panel size 12 by 10 inches. With her acting in TV period drama Bridgerton, Nicola appropriately wore a ruffled top. In order to capture the drama of her choice of dress using a landscape view seemed most appropriate. Within the four hour format the versatility of acrylic paint, with their ability to dry fairly quickly, allows to build up layers.
From Nicola having soft skin tones my intention was to portray her with a romantic look, helped by the white ruffled dress and white earrings; soon became apparent to many that there was something about Nicola, that evoked the well known portrait, Girl with the Pearl Earring, by Vermeer. Not that I could match such a classic painting…
To view this episode copy one of the two links into your browser:
28 February 2021
Clive Myrie - Journalist
In the second episode journalist, news reporter and presenter Clive Myrie sat for previous PAOTY artist Kayoon Anderson. This time I decided on a canvas board 14x10 inches.
With Clive posed before his collection of book shelves reflected his knowledgeable character. Sitting with resting his chin on his hand, made Clive reflective on his career so far. Clive also stated his love of scarves and wearing a red scarf reflected the tones within his darker skin.
I began with a quick rough drawing in brown acrylic, setting out Clive’s position on the canvas. I enjoyed working bringing out the tones of his dark skin along with the contrast of his lighter tones of his hand. In portraying darker skin I try to avoid clichés of using brown or black ( I have an aversion to using black in general), but I like to work on different tones to build on highlights or shadows. In avoiding black I prefer to use blue (and purple) for the shadows.
I did feel a bit ‘uh oh’ as the portrait went through various ugly stages, as I tend to feel with all paintings I do!, and worried that it was not going to work out. But I was fairly please with finished result.
To view this episode copy one of the two links into your browser:
1 March 2021
Jill Nalder - actress
In this episode actress Jill Nalder was painted by Greg Mason.
On this occasion painting I used mixed media on acrylic paper (15x10.5 approx). Jill wore a vibrant pink jumper, which had the potential to dominate the picture. I looked to paint her jumper in a more subdued tone of pink (partly as unable to recreate that vivid colour!). The colour though did bring out an ‘effective’ glow to the shadows of her skin.
Jill’s choice of bright clothing did give the opportunity to use pink in shadows, along with purple for darker areas. I am never quite sure how a portrait will turn out, which I guess is part of the discovery in exploring personality of the sitter. I rarely do preparatory sketches, which sometimes mean cropping off the top of the head which happened here, and am usually wary of depicting smiles, but Jill has a gentle smile which helped me on this occasion.
To view this episode copy one of the two links into your browser:
The episodes are available to view via Facebook, which I have given the links for above, or alternately you can search for each epis for example; example; ode for example; r example; e for example; for example; for example; or example; r example; example; xample; xample; ample; mple; ple; le; e; ;
Oti Mabuse - dancer
In the final episode of PAOTW dancer and star of Strictly Come Dancing Oti Mabuse, was portrayed by Curtis Holder – drawn in his own unique manner.
Oti having a warm engaging personality was a joy to paint. As before my cropped initial drawing meant I was unable to fit in the top of her hair style. Using mixed media, with mainly acrylic, I on a 14 x10 inch panel.
There were similar challenges as in other portraits of the series in depicting darker skin and Oti's pose of resting her chin on her hand. I could have done a painting without a hand, but as Oti is a dancer and using her body to express a feeling I felt this pose might bring something out of her joyful, disciplined character. There was a golden glow to her skin tones, brought out by her use of lighting. I tried to bring out this glow which was also reflected in the gold of her ear rings and gold of her hairstyle. Again depicting a smile added to challenge along with the glint in her engaging eyes.
To view this episode copy one of the two links into your browser:
In Conclusion:
The Sky programme PAOTW, (broadcast on both Facebook and Sky Arts), having been created to bring artists together during the lockdown periods caused by the Covid pandemic, proved to be a very popular among artists worldwide. I really enjoyed the chance to feel part of the wide artistic community and was sorry to find it has lasted only three seasons.
Additionally it was great fun to see if your own picture had made it to the ‘art wall’ shown during the programme, and disappointing if it was not… While I did not spot any of my own in this last series, my painting of Russell Tovey, actor and art geek was squeezed in among the others.
The four hours made for great entertaining discussions between sitter and artist, which PAOTY does not allow and to learn techniques and processes of each artist - The challenge had been to work on your own painting and overcoming the temptation to watch the main artist at work!
The episodes are available to view via Facebook, which I have given the links for above, or alternately search for each episode for example;
sky portrait artist of the week Jill Nalder facebook
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