After seeing the Caravaggio and His Times Exhibit in Rome last week I did some rough-ish drawings of some of his paintings in conte crayon. The man certainly could draw very well in the manner of his day. That did not make him unusual as an artist for that time. Rather it was his perfecting the dramatic use of lighting in his paintings.
Looking to capture the image and personality of this attractive and strong young woman, I was again guided and inspired by the principles of portraiture laid out by Rembrandt.
I did this portrait following as closely as I could Rembrandt’s approach to portrait painting. However he used oil paints and I use acrylics. Blending with acrylics is problematic as they dry so quickly so you have to paint afresh where planes join, although retarders help. His models were in person whereas I use photos, as do most of us given the hours and hours it takes to paint a portrait. Some do a combination of a sitting during which they take photos and work from them later. In the British national portrait competition they had a model and all the artists worked from photos while the sitter could move around freely and talk to the interviewer. Not all photos are professionally done so the lighting is not easy to deal with, as was the case with the photo I used here. The subject was in a snow scene, cheeks red here and there from the cold and hardly any shadows from the diffuse lighting.
With
Avec Ma Fille a Paris, With My Daughter in Paris. At Notre Dame
This is based on a portrait of a friend. Despite all the decoration she is still clearly there!
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In private collection
I joined with two other artists in Valencia to hire a model with whom we enjoyed working. She is able to hold long poses. Over three hours I painted her in acrylics and later added the clothing and background. I took as inspiration for the background the landscape paintings of Van Gogh, with a twist.
