Portrait of Doreen – completed
June 22nd, 2008
This is the portrait that I have been working on for the past 5 – 6 months I think it was. I have previously made an update when I finished the figure and the two dogs and here is the finished painting. It is nearly 4′ tall so it’s quite a big one and is acrylic on fine grain portraiture canvas. I wanted it to be quite a bright and vibrant painting so I have used a lot of complementary colours with the reds and greens which are two colours that I think work beautifully together if you get the right tones so the green of Doreen’s jumper works just right with that tone of red in the sofa and her hair. The sofa was quite a challenge and took about 6-7 weeks to complete, people can’t believe that I want to do that kind of detail but I think patterns in paintings work extremely well , like this sofa or maybe a William Morris print or something like that, especially when juxtaposed to a flat area. I wanted to get something of Doreen’s petiteness so I thought that it would be a good device to plant her in the middle of a large sofa with her foot just resting above the floor. As I say I wanted it to be lively in colour, almost Fauvist in some ways, but I also wanted to get a calmness and a stillness to the portrait which is where their wonderful dogs came in. Having them rested and almost asleep gives the restful quality which I was looking for and in some way they also seem like they are guarding Doreen. While I was doing all of the preliminary work at their house the dog on the left kept licking my face and ear at every opportunity and was extremely friendly. As I said previously it’s the first time I have ever painted dogs in a portrait and they were lovely to depict and really add to the overall composition, – (but please, no requests for pet portraits, even though I love dogs).
Entry Filed under: Art