I’ve loved painting since childhood. At my theatre arts school, along with our dance and drama training we had inspirational art teaching; were made to work large, and up on the wall as there were no easels. I made puppets and painted their faces. National Gallery visits with my grandmother inevitably ended with Rembrandt.
As a subject painter I’ve always found the abstract within what I could observe but only slowly came to realise that my natural subject was human life and feeling. My mother would look askance at my peculiar habit of describing people and their demeanours, to me a most natural instinct; to her an unnecessary invasion of privacy. But to make portraits you’ve got to have a strong sense of curiosity, to break the bounds of privacy.
Preparations
Before starting a portrait I first need to get to know my subject and then to plan a pose from which to develop a composition. We choose clothes together and I photograph different positions in relation to the light source, all helping us to get acquainted. However, my main purpose here is to find good potential both to convey character and to create a composition. I need an idea, even though this starting point often changes along the way.
Although response to individuality, gesture and expression arise directly from the sitter, a portrait is a painting like any other, made of an abstract balance of shape, form and colour. It’s not just a matter of where you place the figure on the canvas. Every part of the rectangle is important to the composition so I choose the canvas size and proportion with that in mind.
I thought this portrait of my grandson Rex was going to be a simple head but as we chat and I snap he suddenly reveals a fascination with playing cards. The chance to show him focussed on an interest is irresistible and so, after studying the photos, I decide he should confront the viewer with a pack of cards, ambivalent but communicative. A card trick? Or is he just shuffling the pack? We both want to include the head of his dad beyond him, painted at a similar age. The soft blue of a favourite shirt sets off Rex’s fair skin. Long before I start painting I’m wondering what pigments would best suit the subject; a complexion is so individual, part of a person’s identity and can determine the colour atmosphere of the whole painting. For example, in this portrait, because Rex’s skin has no strong colour I settle for tonal contrast instead.
We’re now ready for the first sitting: a preparatory study drawn from life to explore proportions, and how I might relate the figure to the rectangle. I then photocopy the drawing on to acetate and project that on to the prepared canvas from an overhead projector. This allows me to shift the drawn shapes around on the canvas and zoom in and out. I don’t want it crammed in nor floating about in the middle. When the size and position look just right I draw in the projected lines with charcoal. Squaring up is marvellous for showing compositional geometry but doesn’t allow you to resize or change the placing. You might wonder why I bother with such a procedure rather than draw on to the canvas straight away. Well, I change my mind a lot and so need as much time as I can get with the sitter. Starting with the scaled drawing in a considered position on the canvas, (but still perfectly changeable) saves a great deal of time.
Materials and practicalities
I prepare canvases with unprimed linen canvas from Russell & Chapple, on Bird & Davis stretchers. After two coats of Roberson’s Acrylic Primer I sometimes add a very thin coloured under-painting, diluted with turpentine then wiped roughly with a cloth. Hog hair brushes I use in variety, from
1½” varnish brushes, down to size 1, long springy filberts if I can find them. If a brush won’t do there’s always rag, fingers or painting knife. To start a painting I dilute the paint with distilled turpentine for broad coverage, then develop it with less or no medium to build up the surface, ending with a little refined linseed oil as needed.
I want a broader rectangle for the painting than the drawing format. The canvas is prepared and then gets an under-painting of well-thinned burnt sienna as a good basis for muted tones. I then project the acetate drawing copy – larger within the canvas space than on the page – so I can build a good sized figure, develop the head fully at 18cm, yet still allow space for the over-all composition to grow.
I like oil paint. Its richness and varied drying pace allow you to work into a painting, wipe off, scrape down, build up. In artist’s quality the different properties and character of each pigment: opaque, translucent, quick or slow drying, can all be used to advantage. Student’s quality equalises these differences with dryers and fillers. The great thing about pigments is how they work with each other. I don’t always use the same palette but make a particular choice of pigments for each painting to evoke a colour theme or atmosphere, selecting from the following range:
White – dulls as it lightens. One touch of titanium white equals several additions of cold, translucent, brittle zinc white so I use titanium, preferably Old Holland, or Michael Harding or Winsor & Newton. I did also use beautiful flake (lead) white but that’s now too scarce and expensive. The remaining range from which I choose is mostly Winsor & Newton: lemon yellow hue, cadmium yellow light, yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, light red, Indian red, cadmium scarlet, cadmium red, alizarin crimson, permanent rose, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, French ultramarine blue, viridian green, raw umber, ivory black.
I was taught that as a figurative artist you are either painting form and space, primarily in tone values with light and shade, or else you are emphasising the picture plane in flat bright colour, like Bonnard for example. I had always hoped you could create volume with light and shadow in terms of strong colour while still relating shapes on the flat as well – but in fact it is a joy to paint form and space in so few colours that you really are only thinking of warm and cool, light and dark.
Painting
Rex appears for his second sitting, to start the painting. I wish, as always, that I could get further during the two-hour session which I find is the optimum time for most people. Rex listens to Game of Thrones. The less I’m involved in listening the better. He takes little breaks to explain the story to me, which helps him loosen up and helps me to see him animated. I frequently step back to judge the balance of relationships.
You often have to begin a portrait from stone cold without knowing your sitter at all. With this one I’ve known my grandson from birth and so have an idea of what to look for, although not how to find or paint it. His pointy eyes (my first attraction) seem incredibly difficult to analyse. For complicated forms like his hands, the simpler the colour the better: one or two warms and a cool is enough to create the structure. Here it’s light red, yellow ochre, cerulean blue. Cadmium red with raw umber works well for skin tones more pink-based than yellow.
The painting takes seven sittings of which four are shown here. At the end of each session I’m ready for the visual ‘questions’ which I’ll try to answer next time, carefully comparing shapes, proportions and alignments. If you hit a likeness too soon it can inhibit you from developing the painting to a greater depth, afraid to lose it. James Lord watched Giacometti painting him and observed the portrait “whisking in and out of likeness.” You have to risk that loss to reach for a deeper likeness whether that succeeds or fails.
I’ve never carried a portrait straight through without a hitch. But solving problems is what you do. As the image gradually comes to life I become more and more committed to it, like a sort of carer. For the elusive magic of a person’s identity I’m prepared to go to any length. I don’t always find it but must go as far as I can until I know I can’t get any closer.
Some of the most arresting images in existence are painted or sculpted portraits. Far from some outmoded art form, depiction is primeval and we are human beings. Two of my favourite portraits are widely loved – Gainsborough’s ‘The painter’s daughters chasing a butterfly’ and Rembrandt’s Kenwood ‘Self portrait with two circles.’ Across the span of life, neither ever fails to move and draw me into its perfect fusion of paint, abstraction and spirit.
Sitting 1 - Preparatory study drawing
I’m using a 3B pencil and Daler-Rowney Lyndhurst, smooth cartridge pad, 508 x 381mm: slightly broader than A2. The photograph shows the whole sheet, uncropped, so you can see the scale of the drawing on the paper. Losing the elbow off the page allows space for background shapes to complete the composition, potentially more interesting than a central placing. In over-emphasising this rugby player’s broad shoulders, my uncertainly is visible on the right.
The overhead projector enlarges images by at least 2 1/2 times so I reduce and photocopy the drawing on to acetate, then project it on to my prepared canvas.
Sitting 2 - Laying in
My emphasis is on tonal rather than bright colour contrasts, so subtle mixtures within a limited palette count more than individual colours. I’m just using titanium white, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, light red, cerulean blue, ultramarine. Others could be added if required (but they aren’t). All these harmonise well. The bright under-painting plays an important part with the cool colours being laid on to it with hoghair filbert brushes (nos.10 to 4), and rag for large areas. Working fast with diluted paint to block in the basic form of the head and suggest main areas of the composition, I correct the proportions from the original drawing, move the supporting box to the right to stop it sliding out of the picture, and then begin some trial and error with background shapes.
Sitting 3 - Development
This more engaging, almost full-face view emerges while developing the head forms in simple contrasts; light red/ochre/white for light planes; cerulean added to these on shadowed planes but with less white, and shifts between warm and cool, moving between a no 6 brush and a no 2. I’m trying to relate the features but certainly not hitting this likeness too soon. Rex leans his head back a bit which slightly foreshortens the jaw. The eyes, so characteristically ‘pointy’, I’d thought would be straightforward. But no. Problems arise that I can’t quite identify let alone explain.
I sweep in the shirt tones with a large brush (10) using white/ultramarine/ochre, with ultramarine and burnt sienna darks. Developing the background, I banish one picture and introduce the second portrait, with more light beneath it to balance the right side of the picture: a mix of white/cerulean/burnt sienna, plus touches of ultramarine/ochre/white. All darks are burnt sienna with cerulean or ultramarine.
Sitting 4 - Resolution
The background head is now smaller, taking its place with other shapes beyond the figure, although it is still too bright. This balance of shapes and angles completes the composition. Correcting the jaw proportions brings the likeness into focus. Now the eyes. (Brush sizes are going down; I always try to use the largest that will do the job but here the subtly relating eye shapes need a number 1 sable.) As so often, it is the relationship of surrounding forms that has to be understood. I try to avoid the unconscious creep towards looking at details in isolation; instead, paying attention to how each one is part of the whole head, keeping the main forms strongest while slight changes of tone and of warm and cool refine the face. Reflected light helps to define the jaw in cerulean blue. I develop the hands and cards (photos help with this transient position) and fill out the rest of the figure, getting as much warm, cool and tonal variety as possible from my limited palette. Burnt sienna mixes marvellously with blues for the shirt but is the last colour I would use on Rex’s face!
Sitting 5 - Completion
Rex, oil, (56 x 46cm)
I like the collision of heads but have now reduced the contrasts in the second head to separate the two in space, avoiding competition between them. Just enough light red with ultramarine makes the purplish sweater in the background portrait. I slightly broaden Rex’s head and finalise the hair shapes with cerulean/ burnt sienna/ochre/white, using a soft mongoose brush (Escoda no.12). Painting the shirt, I focus on the solid body, shoulders and arms it covers, turning towards and away from the light. The structure of hands and cards is now complete and I’m allowing just enough detail in the picture to take the eye through the composition but no more. At last I’ve found that inscrutable gaze and the character I’ve known for seventeen years. Likeness has arrived.
Other Images
Leo in Red, oil, (46 x 56cm)
Passing through a red room in a red shirt, Leo inspired this painting with tonal contrasts in bright colour. My portraits tend towards subtle warms and cools, with emphasis on tone values to construct the forms of face and head. But here, brightly coloured tonal values were forced into view, both by contrast (greens on the face induced by the red) and by affinity (reflected from the red wall and shirt, and green collar). Strong lighting allowed both tonal and colour contrasts to work together, something I’d like to achieve more often. For this simple composition I first drew in charcoal on a white canvas, horizontal to suggest movement across the room. My palette was titanium white, lemon yellow, yellow ochre, raw sienna, cadmium scarlet, alizarin crimson, cerulean, cobalt and ultramarine blues. Every hue has its intrinsic tone before you even start.
Seeking the best of both worlds then, I painted the wall in cadmium scarlet and alizarin crimson with a size 10 brush. Light fall on the face was white with lemon yellow/ochre/red touches, and shadow planes shifted between alizarin/scarlet, and cerulean/cobalt: blues which also worked with lemon for the collar, using brushes: 5 down to 1. For the hair I used ultramarine/alizarin/raw sienna, mixed with white for light areas. The shirt was cadmium scarlet and lemon yellow, with lightest areas lemon yellow. I added cerulean in shadows, alizarin under the collar and, mixed with white, on the left shoulder, which was lastly defined with cerulean reflected light.
Harriot, oil, (56 x 48cm)
This began with a pencil drawing to explore the head, proportions of the figure from my standing viewpoint, and the composition, enjoying the shapes of hair, blue space and mirror frame. My colours were titanium white, yellow ochre, light red, cadmium red, cobalt blue, ultramarine, raw umber. The composition is based on the undulating diagonal from the top left down to the tea cup, and on the stripe patterns from which Harriot’s head emerges.
I used colour very sparingly with white for her delicate skin, in variations of light red/cadmium red/raw umber; including yellow ochre on lightest areas of forehead and chest. Much patience and small filbert brushes (2,1) were needed to describe her body shape by stripes. The light shirt stripes, falling into shadow, I muted with ultramarine/umber which was also varied for greys and darker areas. Soft dark ultramarine stripes kept the brightest cobalt for behind the head. Hair and mirror frame are a warm relief of ochre/light red/umber in this basically cool picture, painted with hog hair brushes sizes 10 – 1.
Juliet Wood
Juliet studied at St Albans School of Art and the Slade School of Art; she taught in London and Marlborough and was painting tutor at Swindon school of art. Juliet’s portraits are held in the Royal Society of Edinburgh, many universities and other public and private collections, including the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. She has exhibited widely with both portraits and thematic paintings. See www.julietwoodportraits.uk and www.julietwoodmorepaintings.uk
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