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Posted
Thank your your promised support Sylvia. I doubt very much if the contestants are allowed to say anything to anybody about it until the series is over.
But I think the last winner, Paul Bell got a lot of sour from the competition and had his work hung in the Tate. So I guess that is the incentive.
As they now have mentors, I presume that the judges got very fed up with doing all the mentoring as they did last year.ut the problem is that mentors have very different approaches to the judges, which may lead to changes in criteria. i.e. I don't think they all sing from the same hymsheet.
Posted
Latest episode of Big Painting Challenge - still don't like it, but never mind.
Clash between Lachlan Goudie and Daphne Todd (and I thought she was right - as the portrait painter of the two, she should have been). Those removed were probably the right ones, although how much longer David can survive has to be in question - he doesn't listen much, and when he does he makes the wrong decision: although it might not have been entirely wise to suggest he should use a painting knife (and it's not, not, NOT a "palette knife", these are two quite different implements) when he'd not used one before - he had a likeness, then lost it.
And if you wear glasses, don't try leaving them out then painting them in afterwards - they're an integral part of your face if you wear them all the time, so tackle them at the outset.
Posted
The young man - and the woman (his name was Ruari, I remember that; but the name of the woman has left my brain entirely.... no reflection on her) took their dismissal very well; and Anson was clearly moved. While I think the decision was right for this programme, is there no cognizance of their overall progress throughout the series? It just doesn't seem very logical - as to why two: well presumably because they're running out of series! Doesn't make much sense otherwise.
Amanda is I THINK the name of the girl from Belfast - she's clearly been listening hard and is prepared to adapt or even abandon her style to the judges' criteria - commercially,that makes a lot of sense; maybe it also makes sense artistically. I did note down that Pascal Anson's advice was generally extremely good this time round, until the point at which he suggested David try a painting knife: although even there - David was doing well until he tried changing thick, wet oil paint too late in the painting, by which point he'd lost the shape of the eye and much of the facial modelling and ended up with flesh tones that looked like a lump of dough. Anyone fancy a bet on him and the optometrist (whose portrait I liked, after a fairly disastrous self-portrait) .being the next to go? And - memory fade again here - did we agree with the dismissal of one of the portraits of Lady Benjamin as not looking like her? I thought it did .... realize I've offered few clues to which one I mean here, I'd need to re-run the programme and quite honestly I haven't the patience for that.
On the whole, I thought the clash between the judges the most interesting part of this episode - you wouldn't REALLY want to take on Daphne Todd in argument, would you? And I loved the shots of her magnificent portraits in the gallery: so very good. We could have done with a longer look at them.
Posted
One thing that baffles me a little is ( more than one thing actually like why suddenly two going home?) contestants choosing to experiment (as with David? and his little trowel) in the midst of a competition. Skill levels apart, surely they know their own strengths (the much topical "comfort zone" )and have some idea what they'll be asked to do; landscape, portrait, still life etc? I admire them all for their efforts, but choosing to abandon a work during what is effectively a time trial and start again is really making rods for own backs? These guys are supposedly the cream of some sort of crop, but surely that would include some sort of basic standard as an entry? Suman.. spelling? is doing very well and I think she may well be a winner but I surely won't attept to pick one. Young Jennifer Juniper is a bit of a revelation much like the young girl last year. It's still compulsive watching for me because of the human frailty angle and it looks like ballet week next week. That should be fun.
Posted
Why Lachlan has to do a guided tour of classic portraits and other other subject over the weeks beats me.Let's just see and listen to the painters. The dippy blonde still hasn't a clue and should have gone last night, but at least we didn't see her using hair. The woman that went was IMHO doing OK but had no idea of skin tones. Like Robert I loved the clash of the titans. The coloured bloke is a waste of time, he's not a painter, why have him and again the staff are over staffed.
Some strange decisions being made during the works and on a limited time, it's odd. My money's on the chap who switched to a painting knife last night.
Posted
<div>I'm also putting my money of the young Irish girl. I actually liked her portrait of Floella. And I even warmed to Pascal and enjoyed his advice which took my mind of his orange dungarees. In fact I can't recall if he was wearing them yesterday. However, although I feel that the two weakest went, I wasn't sure why they both were sent home. Did you see the shock on their faces when they were told that two would be departing?</div>
Posted
Got round to watching Sunday's episode last night on portraits and what continues to stand out more than anything is the contestants lack of drawing skills,experience and knowledge of the human face. No surprises there then, most of us honed in on that weakness some time ago and I make no excuses for nerves and being in front of cameras, they put themselves into the competition, no one else.
With the exception of the winner who incidentally I picked last week to be overall winner and I still stand by that, she is head and shoulders above the rest (no pun intended), no one else seemed to have a clue about a suitable palette for portrait painting. We all, or most of us anyway know that there are set colours that work, yes of course if you are a famous artist you can get away with anything but I would have thought that before embarking on a trip to the National Portrait Gallery some of them would have done some basic research. I spotted some dreadful colours on the palettes, it made me cringe, probably even Flesh Tint, no surely not! but I did see evidence of some rather sickly mixes of Cadmium Red and White being used as flesh tones.
The two that went home were undoubtedly the weakest on the day but the dippy blonde should have joined them, she has demonstrated a complete lack of ability and I fear that her days are numbered.
Posted
Don't know if any of you follow the Making a Mark blog - I do, but typically I've forgotten the name of the artist who runs it - I do sometimes wonder if my brain isn't headed for early retirement.... Would it be Jennifer Tyrell....?
Anyway, in that blog .... the artist has done a bit of research; she's looked at the websites of some of the artists, plus the notes on them on the BBC website, which I'd not bothered to do. It transpires that this is not an equal playing-field at all - some have had a little tuition, principally going to life classes, while others have taken fully-fledged art courses, and one (I could hardly believe this), the woman from N Ireland (whose name I got wrong in the last post, I think it could be Jennifer; the hair extension painter, anyway), actually runs an art course.
Suggesting two things - one, that this is not an equal competition; two, that you need to be bloody careful whom you choose as an art tutor if you're hoping to get anywhere.
And two points more - one, Marjorie: there's nothing wrong with being in a minority. It's always better than conventional wisdom. But two, Alan - I agree with you! I noticed a tube of Flesh Tint in the paintbox of a professional artist friend of mine - asked her, incredulously, if she actually used it; "it's good for painting sand", she replied. Although I have read - forget where, long time ago so I can forgive myself for forgetting this time - a professional artist saying he used it as the basis for distant figures (which I can sort of understand) and for portraits: which I just can't fathom at all. I didn't notice the Cadmium Red on the palette - I used it myself long ago, when painting a portrait: the words "never" and "again" occur.
Posted
Hopefully Abstract art Wanderer. A little scary that she is an art teacher which shows that if you are embarking on a art course or workshop you should do your homework on the teacher and their methods first. However, away from the cameras she could be a jolly good teacher in her field of 'expertise'.