'This is a painting of my friend Freddie,' says Robin-Lee Hall.
'I try to work from life whenever the sitter is available and, in Freddie’s case, she was a willing and very patient sitter.
'I sat quite close to her – about two to three feet away – so I could see details. I use a mahl stick to steady my hand when I’m painting the fine strokes.'
Demonstration: Freddie
Stage one
After taking photographs and making numerous studies in pencil and pastel I decided on the composition and made a drawing on tracing paper.
Stage two
Still with the haematite colour, I drew the form of Freddie’s face with my 4/0 brush.
Stage three
I aim to cover the whole board so that the painting is at the same stage of completion all over before I move on.
Stage four
It was starting to get exciting as I added crosshatched colour over the top.
This immediately created a little more depth to the face. I was still not using any white, just pure unmixed colour.
I put vermillion – the real stuff and very poisonous, iron oxide yellow, terre verte and magenta into the mix.
The background and hair has a little spinel black over the terre verte.
Stage five
This is the stage where I start putting on my light colours.
Finished painting
Freddie egg tempera, (26.5x8.5cm)
I built up the highlights, which consist of two types: bluish – cobalt violet and titanium white, and yellowish – Indian yellow and titanium.
In the shadows are reflected mid-tones, such as cobalt blue pale with buff titanium (especially as Freddie’s wearing a blue blouse).
I put highlights into the hair, plus cool blue greys made from cobalt blue pale and spinel black.
Over the light side of the face I created warmth with irgazine ruby and Indian yellow and then laid pure buff titanium over the top, letting some of the colour peep through.
Freddie has hazel eyes, so I worked iron oxide yellow into cobalt blue pale.
Eyes are really important and I spend a lot of time on them. I floated a malachite green wash over the cool areas and continued to build up the light colours so that the face has uniformity.
Finally I re-emphasised the highlights in the eyes, cheeks and nose, and added more tendrils of hair to Freddie’s right side.
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