I’ve begun a portrait of my brother Mike the poet who posts verses here under my various paintings. Michael has decided that time of life has been reached when a portrait would be appropriate. I’ve got the job and what a pleasure it is too. Here you see the first working drawing which will be used to lay down the shadows onto the canvas. The technique I am describing in Work in Progress has seldom been so much use to me as with Michael’s image – a face so familiar to me. Any artist will tell you that you have to get past what you think you see and draw and paint what is really there – and what is really there is light. Light and not light. Concentrating purely on the shadows absolutely liberates you from the psychological effect of the image. There were several times in creating this drawing that I lost sight of where I was but persisted in studying only the enlarged portion I was working on and transferring it to the paper via a grid. It is to be recommended – I have just completely rediscovered a face I have known quite literally since the day I was born.
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Syros Paintings 