Gavin McDermott

The session was all about ways to work with the key part of the portraiture Golden Triangle’ and so focussed on eyes, noses and mouths

Eyes

Exemplary works were discussed, especially the looseness, and absence of hard lines E.g. Pope Innocent X by Velázquez,and the emphasis was on painting softly.

Once again
darks are thinner, lights are thicker

This softness was very apparent in Rembrandt’s self portrait , too, at Kenwood House.

The third painting we considered was Miss Beatrice Townsend by John Singer Sargent, and this also included green to add a coolness in contrast the red of the lips.

• Start with what you can see
• Pupil is always in the middle of the iris

Noses

Q. How to make a nose 3D?
A. Good shadows

NB Half tone = mid tone

Lips

Soft lips! E.g. Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring

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These were all wet-on-wet Alla Prima techniques, so I did wonder about doing a preliminary sketch in acrylics to speed drying of the under painting (Oil paint goes on top of acrylic very happily…)

I was also curious to consider doing an entire painting in acrylic, too, but even with drying inhibitor it was a race against time to block solid colour before the the paint was dry in each square of my Zorn Palette!

Also, what’s funny is that even though I painted an acrylic outline, I still ended up working alla prima in the oils later anyway