Painting Skye

 

This is Skye and she was the subject for last Saturday’s (December 3) portrait workshop. I had originally booked Neil, the subject for my recent portrait  “Raccoon”, but at the last minute he was offered a part in a panto and as any freelancing artist knows,  a  job is a job and can’t be refused!  

Fortunately for us Skye was a super model. A photographer and artist, she knew instinctively which poses would make a good painting. There were eight people in the group and the workshop started with several initial 15/20 minute poses to familiarise ourselves with the new model as well as some 2 minute sketches – it’s amazing how restricting time can focus the mind!. I always suggest starting from a point within the face/head and working towards the edges as drawing the outline of the head at the start can often lead to misjudged proportions.

Although this wasn’t a pastel- based workshop all but one decided to use either soft or oil pastels for the long pose with one person working in oils.

Here are some of the results:

Jilly Johnston – soft pastels

Edward Cartin – oil on board

Rossi McConaghy – soft pastels

Roberta Lyndsay – Oil pastels (detail)

Margaret McClelland soft pastels on velour paper

May Gawn – charcoal and soft pastels

 Maureen Ellis – soft pastels

  Kay McCrory-  soft pastels

Some of the above are finished pieces and others are works in progress – photographs were taken in order to continue or not as the case may be. It never fails to amaze me how differently we all see the world around us and I find that very comforting!

As I was tutoring the session I didn’t get to paint Skye this time but she’s promised to come back so watch this space………