Jan 28th and 29th, Weekend painting for a suicide prevention project

 

This is a submission for a collaborative project based in Brighton bringing attention to suicide prevention. The instructions are to use only Prussian blue and white oil paint for a self portrait on a 30" x30" canvas  - then all the portraits are collated, resulting in " A quiet blue wall"; We the Human exhibition. 

I find that I spend a long time checking angles, shapes, lines and scale.  I know how I want something to fit but I think when I approach a painting, I hate anything technical like grids but I move things around a lot to figure it out. 

This one was really hard- I think because of a grainy reference, and the angle of the face really confused me. In my last painting, I started wiping with a dry 3" brush and I really like the effect of blurring but with sharp enough lines, it leaves enough to guide you to add other details.

So this is what I've done. I've mapped it out and then blurred and repeated until I was happy with where I could sit the details that I wanted. 

Now I just want to add some dark and light highlights once its dried - without breaking it. 

 

 

I've used blurring in. my last 3 paintings and they all feel very different but I think I'm slowly tapping into my own "style" of painting as an artist. So I'll plough on.

I think I need to:

• Have more confidence in the loose instinctive marks
• Keep exploring adding and removing / wiping (with a rag or brush) paint 
• Move away from detailed works to a fresher more lively way of painting.
• Try blocking quite solid sections of shape to blur and create tonal shapes and shadows that I cab work with.
• Figure out when to stop and what's too much detail ..It feels like some sharper lines and smooth tones act as damage rather than creating a clearer image - but I still fell like the right lines and values in the right places make a painting work??