DEGREES UNEDITED

# 20 [17 April 2007]

did some extra work on olivias face, just putting in the shadows and making sure everything is in the right place. did some more work on mine, too. i bought some new paints and brushes today, for the first tine in months. the smallest round brush i had wasn't small enough so i've bought a 000 for the eyelashes and a small flat one, too, just for detail. also bought a tube of terre verte, as the sap green which i use in skin tones all the time is a bit yellowey, and a tube of raw umber, as burnt umber is a bit red based and looks too reddy brwon in the hair.

ooh, i nearly finished helen! i did alter the nose, it still isn't quite right, needs to twist a bit round to the left. i always look at it in real life and it looks fine, then i take a photo and it looks all wrong...

oh yes, bit of a disaster with the background on olivia's one, couldn't work out what colour to do the sky, so did it one shade of blue, changed my mind, then changed it to light naples yellow, so it went green (obviously).. sort of scrubbed it out until next time1 need to make a decision soon though, because whatever colour it is it will have a lot of white in it, so will take a while to dry, so i won't be able to do the hair until it is.. so it has a knockon effect, basically. don't panic, don't panic...

# 19 [17 April 2007]

have just come home for lunch. painting makes me very hungry! i painted the first layer on olivia today, and am in the process of refining the first layer on me. i'll put photos of that up later. going to attempt to finish helen, having it sitting there unfinished is annoying me a bit.

# 18 [16 April 2007]

here are the ones of olivia, and of my degree show layout, and a photo of my studio space.

# 17 [16 April 2007]

did lots today, very pleased with myself! photoshopped the photos that i chose, upping the contrast a bit so i get some good shadows, then printed them. i took loads of photos today, of the actual process, so you'll be able to see it from the very beggining to the end. to transfer the image to the canvas i do a tracing using plastic and a black marker, going round the features, then pull up the sheet bit  by bit, drawing in pencil the line, so then i have a rough idea of where everything is. this is a really importrant part of the process, because if i make a mistake at the stage, and don't notice it, then, say, the eye might be a centimetre the wrong way and i might not notice until after i've painted it and that would be a disater! after that i paint in over the pencil with a browny green wash, adding some tones. then i put on the first layer of paint, wheich won't be visable in the final piece but just acts as a base to put other colours on. i did that on the one of me, it looks like me which is a huge realief becuase the one of helen didn't look like her for ages. hopefully these won't cause me too much pain (famous last words!)

the one bad thing about today was that the canvas's that i ordered for the skull paintings are too small, it's my fault, for some strange reason i thought i wanted them to be six inches, when in fact they need to be ten, so i've placed another order.

i also did a bit more work on helen, not enough too warrant another photo, i'll wait till its done before i put that up.

i did a mock up of the placement of the paintings in my degree show, as i mentioned before i've changed the order somewhat, i'll put those photos on too...

# 16 [17 April 2007]

ok, iknow which image i am using of olivia now. the one of my is giving m a bit of trouble, i think vanity may be getting in the way of choosing the photo that is going to work best as a painting, rather than which one is going to make me look good! the main property that it needs to possess is a decent graduaton from light to dark in the skintones; ie part of the face needs to be significantly lighter than the other. this is so i can avoid the difficulties that i had in helen's portrsit, where her face was all the same tone. also, it needs to be quite close up, like the one of kate, so the brushmarks that i use correspond to the size of the face, again, a lesson i learned from helen's portrait. the one of olivia looks better tonally at the moment because i've photoshopped it - it looked a bit washed out before.

# 15 [15 April 2007]

aaaah, back at uni.  just over three weeks until my degree show has to be put up, and i have a lot to do in that time. i have to finish another two portraits (i'm printing out the photos tommorow), paint four skull paintings, do a dissertation, make a sketchbook, photograph the work, hang the work. is it humanly possible?! i think so, but i don't think i'm going to be doing anything else for the next four weeks.  i'm going to go and make my final decision about which two photographs i'm printing out tommmorow, then i'll post them on here. wish me luck....

# 14 [7 April 2007]

just got back off holiday, will be continiung my blog when i get back to aberystwyth on thursday. i didnt get into the BP Award,  but never mind....

# 13 [29 March 2007]

finished kate wahoo....

helen is nearly done, a few problems need to be ironed out though. john (my tutor) thinks that her nose is slightly out of joint, and her left hand side nostril needs to move to the left a bit more, and to be a bit bigger. left to do on her is: her lashes, the nose, and to darken her teeth a bit. i'm going away this week, but i'll be taking the next set of photos, ready for when i get back. they will be of me and my friend alex. john said he dosnt think it matters that my exhibition will be all females, that it adds to the concept, because its about beauty and the decaying of the blossoming flower, as it where, rather than the death of heroism or other manly attributes. if thats the way that its read, then that's fine, as long as it dosn't look like some kind of feminist statement then i'm happy. john aslso suggested that rather than putting the paintings all in a row, with ther skulls inbetween, that i could put the skulls underneath the big paintings, which is more relevent to historical depictions anyway. death lower to the ground, so to speak. the skulls are going to be quite quick and sketchy, which will provide a contrast to the portraits but also be a metaphor for the seped of decay.

# 12 [26 March 2007]

oops, i seem to have lost the last photo of helen, but it dosnt matter because it looked crap anyway. here are the photos from today. i corrected all the obviously wrong things, still lots of little adjustments to be made tho. spoke to painting tutor today, he said he thought the one of kate worked better as a painting because of the scale of the face. he thinks that the scale matched the types of brushmarks i am using, whereas i am using the same kind of brushmarks on a painting that should be using smaller scale brushmarks. hhmmm. brought the one of kate home to finish. going to finalise my degree catalogue statement tonight, a surprsingly complex task for about a hundred words! i've been alloted my space for the degree show, i've got a thirteen foot long wall, which is great. four big paintings, three skull pictures inbetween them. just got to paint the buggers now!

# 11 [26 March 2007]

rah. did  more work on helen on friday (which ill put the photos of at lunchtime) but when i showed it to her she pointed out loads of problems, which is good because she is probably the best person to tell me why her own face dosn't look right. the follwing needs to be corrected: face needs to be thinner, on both sides, the neck needs to be thinner on the left hand side. her left hand side eye needs to slope to the left more (at the moment she looks faintly chinese because it is too straight) and the corner of the left hand side of the mouth needs to, similarly, tilt down to the left. the right hand side corner has something wrong with it as well.... meanwhile , kate is nearly finished, so soon i can put her picture up with the word FINISHED under it!