The Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC have puchased 2 of my paintings for their permanent collection. It is reputed to be the biggest museum in the world and this is my first acquisition into a major American collection so I’m delighted to have some of my work represented there.
The 2 paintings are both portraits of very eminent American figures; Cormac McCarthy and Murray Gellman.
I first met them in 2004 when my gallery invited me over to Santa Fe, New Mexico to do a portrait based project exploring “The people of New Mexico” where I drove around the state looking for interesting faces. Cormac and Murray were based at a “think tank/ research unit ” situated in the middle of the New Mexican desert where they develop their own projects and hold philosophical discussions around tables.
Cormac McCarthy is widely considered to be one of the greatist living American writers. In 1992 he wrote “All the Pretty Horses” which was later made into a film starring Matt Damon. In 2005 he wrote “No Country for Old Men” which more recently was made into a film directed by the Coen brothers starring Tommy Lee Jones and won 4 Academy Awards at this years Oscars including “Best Film”. In 2007 he won The Pulitzer Prize for literature. He is notoriously reclusive and very rarely gives interviews so I was incredibly lucky to get him to sit for me in Santa Fe, I think something just clicked between us and we seemed to get on.
Murray Gell-Mann is a world renowned Physicist who has made discoveries and developments in “Quantum Physics” and in 1969 he won the Nobel Prize for physics. I loved his “eccentric scientist” look and the fact that he wore a Native American Indian bootlace tie.
May 5th, 2008
Phil Hale’s recent portrait of Tony Blair prompted the following article on the Parliamentary Collection in The House of Commons. I’ve admired Phil’s work for many years now since he first exhibited in The BP Portrait Awards (around 2001 if my memory serves me), and I think he was an excellent choice to paint Blair, looks really good too from the photographs I’ve seen but I haven’t seen it in the flesh yet.
Anyway, here is an extract from the article which a friend pointed out to me last week refering to my portrait of Tony Benn.
Peter Conrad - Sunday 27th April 2008 -The Observer/(Sunday Guardian)
“The best parliamentary portraits have a candour that does credit to the artist and - perhaps even more - to the subject. Tony Benn chose to present himself to Andrew Tift as a private man in a messy, madly eccentric domestic setting with a transistor radio propped on a cardboard carton that does duty as a side table and a tacky plaster statuette of Marx on the mantelpiece. His shoelaces don’t match, and a button on his floppy cardigan is chipped. Only tyrants bother about posing as heroes; democracy, to its credit, is inured to human imperfection”.
May 5th, 2008
If anybody is interested I have a long history of doing talks about my work in art colleges, galleries, society of artists etc… The illustrated presentation lasts about and hour and a half, talking about all of the work that I have done since my MA to the present day spanning 16 years of work. It is divided up into sections featuring paintings, drawings, roughs and sequencial examples detailing how I build up a painting and then it’s an open floor for questions.
I charge £150 for the talks (plus travelling expenses if it is outside of the West Midlands). Just drop me a line if you would like to book a talk.
April 20th, 2008
Anne and myself went away for a break to Cornwall a few weeks ago and I took my sketchbook with me with no real intentions to do anything. I’ve been scrutinising and looking at peoples faces almost daily for more than 15 years now and I got to thinking that over that period of time there must be some kind of visual record in my head that I can tap. So, just as an experiment I thought I’d try and see what kind of a head I could draw straight out of my head with nothing in front of me and this image grew over a period of hours almost entirely spontaneously I guess, though I was making narrative judgements along the way to give the head a context.
It looks a bit too much like caricature for me in retrospect which is not an avenue I really want to explore in any depth but it was a great little exercise for me to do, just to see what materialised. I put the typography on when I got back home using my printer. The title refers to a song that my wife introduced me to by Cat Stevens - ( currently Mr Yusuf Islam) and I just liked the idea of him being a Ramones fan.
April 20th, 2008
I made this drawing very recently for a charity art auction in aid of Leukemia research at the Queen Elizabeths Hospital in Birmingham. It is a drawing of a Voodoo Doll that I brought in New Orleans who now sits on my shelf in the studio. I haven’t been cooking up a voodoo hex on anybody, it’s just a lovely piece of magical iconography which to me is extremely aesthetically pleasing.
The main auction is on 20th May at St Paul’s gallery in Birmingham and there will be a few days prior to this where you can take a look at the full body of work which will be auctioned.
Dig deep and bid hard.
For more information about the event please take a look at the following website.
http://www.claa2008.com/
April 20th, 2008
Here is what I am working on at the moment. It is a portrait of a lady called Doreen. Luckily for me Doreen has a very interesting face, piercing blue eyes orange / red preraphaelite hair. I immediately wanted to use the cloour of Doreen’s hair in the painting and I always love the way that complementary red and green work together so I asked her to wear a green jumper which also contrasts beautifully with the red sofa too ( which I will be working on next). I think the portrait was more the conception of her husband than Doreen and I’m sure that she won’t mind me saying that she was very uneasy/uncomfortable about sitting for the commission initially but as the hours went by I think she became more relaxed with the whole thing and we began to get some nice images. In contrast, her husband took to being photographed extremely well when I took a few pictres of him later on.
The family had two lovely dogs and I really wanted to include them within the painting because they were so much a part of the family , at your side all the time. While I fear with dread the idea of “Pet Portraiture” I think putting pets within paintings where they are not the main subject, just a little section of a painting works extremely well and in some ways just puts another heartbeat into the painting rather than an inanimate object. I also really enjoyed painting the dogs too, other than drawing my own dog I have never really painted a dog before and their hair, paws and eyes were the perfect subject matter for my detailed style. I’m just about to start the sofa which has incredible detail in the pattern which I’m quite looking forward to.
More updates soon.
(click on the images to enlarge)
April 20th, 2008
I will be teaching a one week course at the beautiful Andreeva Portrait Academy, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA in December 2008. I will be focusing on Super-realist self portraiture and taking everybody through exactly how I work to achieve an objective likeness.
For more information contact The Andreeva Portrait Academy -
admissions@theportraitacademy.com
Agenda
The full weeks tuition will focus around photorealist self portraiture.
First stages
- Initially we will be looking at the relationship between photography and photorealist portraiture and how to make good quality photographs, looking at the importance of lighting, composition and visual editing.
- I will use examples of my own work to explain my approach to photorealist portraiture in terms of lighting, composition, proportion, mood, background, direction of gaze, expression, pose/posture and finally fleshtones.
- I will explain 2 methods which can be used to the photographic image to canvas.
Before we start painting I will explain the following:
Materials
- Acrylic paint
- The specific types of paint that I use
- How to mix the exact color / fleshtone that you want and examine the subtle colours that are present in the face.
- I will discuss my own personal palette and swatch chart
- I will explain how to preserve your paint while you are working
- Look at the variety of brushes that I use in the process of making a portrait and the importance of each brush
- I will also offer tips about the other significant equipment that I use.
Painting techniques
- I will be painting sections of a photorealist self portrait during the week to explain exactly how I work. I will be giving lots of individual tuition throughout the week and discussing examples of “sequences and dissections” of my paintings to offer stage by stage tuition
- Once we start painting I will explain the complete process of creating a realistic portrait from beginning to end including:-
- How to paint in a base tone
- make a detailed drawing and seal the graphite
- where to start on the portrait
- how to make the initial marks to define the portrait
- Put down the initial base tones
- work in the modeling
- Build up the fleshtones with glazes, scumballing and blending
- Work in the detail
- Fine tune the fleshtones so that they are working tonally
- Consider the right background
- Bring the whole thing together softening and sharpening specific areas.
March 15th, 2008
It seems a strange thing to give away but if anybody would like one of my palette skins which build up on my palette’s while I am painting then you are welcome. I was peeling some off my palettes and throwing them away the other day and somebody asked if they could have one -” Stick it in a frame and it’s as good as a Howard Hodgkin “ They are acrylic so they hold the perfect shape of my palette. While I paint I also have a sheet of A4 paper taped to the canvas onto which I drag out the excess paint before I apply it to the canvas. I don’t know but if anybody would like one of these too you are welcome, they’ll only end up in the bin.
I’ve got about 4 “Skins” at the moment and it’s strictly first come first served so drop me a line ( marked “palette skins”) if you want one. (UK only I’m afraid)
March 15th, 2008
I made these drawings while I was working on the large portrait painting of Ronald last year. They weren’t really preliminary drawings, more getting to know his face. It was a wonderful commission to work on and I was very pleased with the images from the original sitting and wanted to develop them a little further. While the painting is lit with natural light coming streaming in from the large window I used very strong, directional light for this series which created very dramatic chiaroscuro style shadows which I love.
The triptych drawing is currently on display in The Wales Portrait Award which is touring around Wales for the next 2 years. It is yet another carbon copy of the BP Portrait Award promoting figurative painting and there are some strong pieces in it including former BP Award winner Peter Edwards with his portrait of Ryan Giggs.
(click on the image to enlarge)
March 6th, 2008
This is a recent painting of a biker that I met called Bandana. I’m always interested in people who live their own alternative lifestyle, on the fringes of society, outside of the mainstream. They are almost always interesting both visually and in conversation and Bandana was no exception.
He is the member of The Kavern motorcycle club which is based in a pub in Walsall, just down the road from me. They are not actually Hells Angels but are affiliated to them. I’ve walked and driven past many times and they are usually outside drinking, talking and smoking and I’ve often thought that they would make great sitters so the one night I went over and got chatting to some of the club members and some of them agreed to sit for me. ( click on the image to enlarge)
Due to commitments with portrait commissions this is probably the only new painting which will be available for sale that I will do for the next 12-18 months. For further enquires please contact David Powell at philipsartgallery@btinternet.com or telephone 0161 282 0318 / 07968 047224
Bandanna will be on display at The Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibition at The Mall Gallery from 24th April -11th May.
February 11th, 2008
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(click on the image to enlarge)