Week 14 - Part 2 - My biggest and scariest piece yet!
My final assignment for the oil and drawing section
I wasn’t joking when I said this week’s final piece was a big one 😏
I was feeling all the feelings!
For our final assignment, we had to create a large-scale painting utilising any of the techniques we have learned throughout the past 14 weeks of the program.
We could choose any technique, as long as we spent around 8 hours on the piece.
The first thing I have noticed since working through the past few weeks is that anything that has involved ‘subtraction’ has been a really fun process.
My flamingo painting, my New York painting, the tulips, my cherry still life… and almost all of the charcoal drawings had a subtraction method too.
We were advised to choose our source from a place of strength and not weakness, so I thought it was a good idea to challenge myself with my hit-and-miss nemesis…
A portrait.
I found a photo that I had saved of the gorgeous Alexa Demie (Euphoriaactress) and got going, starting with the traditional subtraction method.
At this point, I didn’t really realise how long and tedious this method would be on a large scale canvas…
After a long 4 hours, I hadn’t even finished the subtractions stage and wanted to launch the canvas out of the window.
Are you ready?
HAHAHA.
What on earth?
The only decent bit about this underpainting is the glowy light bulbs and the definition in her boobs.
I couldn’t believe that I was 4 hours in and hadn’t even finished this layer yet - and the proportions were all wrong.
It was turning into a disaster piece.
I may have had a little cry out of frustration… but I realised I had set myself up for failure by using a technique that probably wasn’t suited to this kind of task, with the restrictions that I already had in place.
The only solution was to try again.
I brushed myself off, whipped out that giant paintbrush, painted over the whole thing, and used solvent to pull as much paint off the canvas as I could.
I could have shied away from a portrait entirely after this disaster, but I was adamant that I would not let fear of failure consume me.
So with a fresh start the next day, I asked myself again, what were my favourite pieces over the past few weeks? When did I create a portrait that I did like?
My favourite pieces were probably week 12, where I painted 3 x limited palette, alla prima paintings.
Specifically, the last painting - with the orange-red limited palette 😍
Reasons I love this piece:
I was left stunned because I never thought I would be able to paint a portrait that I was actually proud of
I couldn’t believe I was capable of creating something like this in 2.5 hours
The colours of fire and flames speak to my soul ❤️🔥
I love the cinematic feel of the piece
For years I believed that colour wasn’t my thing (because I decided I was just bad at it), and I’d avoided colour like the plague.
But then creating this piece - with a technique so advanced that it wouldn’t normally be taught until 4th year of fine art school - ignited that fire in my belly.
I just had to try and do it again to prove to myself it wasn’t just a fluke!
Limited palette - creating the illusion that the painting
is only one colour. This is created by mixing 20 or more variations of this colour, resulting in a monochromatic final painting.
Alla Prima - 'at first attempt'. A wet-on-wet approach whereby wet paint is applied to previous layers of still-wet paint, often in a single sitting.
So, for my final assignment for the oil and drawing section of the Mastery Program, I decided to create another limited palette, alla prima.
The catch?
Alla prima means I have to keep going until it’s finished…
And we all know I don’t like to make things easy for myself…
Task: Paint for 9 hours, from start to finish.
I started with a more simple photo from the same photoshoot - I think I had been staring at the other source for too long and needed to start fresh.
It has all of the things that I like: the cinematic lighting, Alexa’s beautiful features, red-orange tones, a paper fan…
And another challenge - fingers!
Oh boy 😆
I started with carefully sketching the skeleton of the portrait with thin paint, and mapping in the proportions.
Her face started to get dark after the amount of times I had to wipe the paint away and try again…
But… so far so good 😁
I focused on building everything from back to front, and 4-5 hours in, she was really starting to take shape.
Even my iPhone was recognising her face!
This only fueled my confidence and spurred me on.
I continued for another 2-3 hours, but the sun was starting to set and after only a handful of 10-minute pee breaks and snack breaks, I had to stop for the night.
First thing the next morning I got cracking to finish her up.
(It wasn’t really cheating because the paint was still wet, so it was technically still ‘alla prima’… 😆)
I spent 2 more hours refining her face and adding in some final highlights on her fingers.
9 hours later I was staring at her and couldn’t believe she was finished.
My favourite parts of this piece are her feminine delicate fingers, the subtle texture of her hair and the lusciousness of her full lips.
Look how juicy they are!
Even though I was so happy with the outcome of this piece, I was nervous to share it with people incase they knew who I was trying to paint.
I was proud for many reasons: portraits used to be so difficult for me and I never felt confident enough to create them without tracing, I loved the colour palette, and she represented resilience and a journey for me.
But something was still leaving me disheartened.
I feel like my portraits may look good, but they don’t ever actually look like the person they are meant to…
I find that drawing or painting someone who would be deemed as ‘anonymous’ is fine because no one knows who they are supposed to look like.
But getting my painting like for like with the reference photo?
Still not happening for me yet.
I brought this up with my mentor last week as it is something that lingers in my perfectionist mind.
But she said something that has made me look at it all differently.
She said to me that doesn’t matter.
She said that I capture emotion and expression in my portraits, and can turn any face into a beautiful new face.
These new faces that I create come out in a way that is totally unique and authentic to me.
She is so right.
Who cares if she’s not perfect?
She’s still beautiful and represents a massive accomplishment for me 🥰
My new favourite thing?
Foolin’ AI 😏
So here she is…
My final assignment to finish the oil and drawing section of the masteryprogram.
‘Dolce Vita’, 2023
24x32 - oil painting on canvas
She’s available. And in print form too 🧡✨
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