Finished Double Portrait

‘Double Dan’ 30”x38” Oil on canvas

The finished “double portrait” of Dan that I started a while ago. This has been worked up and fleshed-out in what could be called an “indirect alla prima” technique. 

Dan is posing, showing off his images of himself, but the completed painting does actually capture a side of him, I feel - that of his “entrepreneurial” character. He's a "Dude".

Talented Friends

10”x8” Paper negative photographic print

Not strictly totally a painting made by me this post… although there is one of mine in it.

This photographic image is one of ‘The Paper Portrait Sessions’ taken by the very talented Ross den Otter.

As part of the Vancouver Capture Photography Festival, Ross sent out an open invitation to the public to visit his studio and have a large format portrait made. He took 40 images in just over 4 hours - which is pretty quick going.

Ross built his camera obscura as a box 4 feet by 8 feet by 8 feet, made of 2×2’s, wood screws and a few layers of tar paper... so just a tad smaller than a typical Vancouver condo. He used a a WWII era 14 inch Cooke Aviar type lens bolted to the construction. He actually took the photo standing within the camera itself (which also served as his darkroom in which he processed the large format paper negatives - although there was no running water in it).

The photo Ross took had an 10"×8" paper negative, capturing a portrait of me holding a portrait I painted of Ross. I’ve done a couple of paintings of Ross over the years, as I’ve known him for almost a decade - longer than I’ve actually been in Vancouver. 

Sitting in The Studio

‘Britt’ 36”x28” Oil on canvas

An oil brunaille portrait "in progress" that I'm currently working on of my girlfriend. This was taken a while ago, as I have already moved quite a way along the path of painting it up in colour.

More than anything this was intended as an exercise in lighting à la many 18th century English portraits - dappled woodland light and/or multiple light sources, that sort of thing. It’ll be interesting anyway.

Out of the Dark - Double Portrait

‘Double Dan’ 30”x38” Oil on canvas

The start of a double portrait of one of the many studio inhabitants that I know from the ACME building. This is again the early stages in the work with just the umber underpainting laid in.

I haven’t quite decided at the moment on the background, so have left it pretty open and flexible. I might put a suggested dark view in or, more likely, simply use a nondescript deep tonal colouration to fill in the area.

The whole image is, at the sitter’s request, slightly mysterious with a slight whiff of “edge” as he potentially might use it as a cover for an album of his recordings. But if not, it's still worth the doing.

The ‘Envoy Extraordinary’ from Persia

'Abu’l Hasan' 35”x27½” Oil on canvas

In 1810 one of London’s most prominent celebrities was Mirza Abu’l Hasan (later given the title “Khan”), the ‘Envoy Extraordinary’, who was dispatched by the Shah of Persia Fath Ali to the Court of King George III. He had arrived in London in 1809 trying to negotiate Britain’s involvement against Russian involvement in the Caucasus. He wasn’t ultimately successful due to shifting politics caused by the ongoing Napoleonic wars, but he cut an exotic and dashing figure in London’s high society.

Sir Thomas Lawrence whipped off this portrait of him in just four two-hour sittings in June 1810. Lawrence had to be especially quick as the painting had immediately to go back to Persia with Mirza Abu’l Hasan.

This small copy might be another glue-size tempera painting - they are fun to do and can easily be executed at home on my kitchen table before I go into town to the studio. However, I might just do it in oil, the main drawback of tempera is the difficulty of overpainting due to its tendency to "lift" - it's only at the drawing stage, so I have options.

Lawrence's original is simply gobsmacking in its painterly virtuosity, I feel one of the greatest English portraits ever made (although of a Persian), and have made a point of  seeing it every time it has been on public display. It simply reeks “Englishness” in painting - a Scotsman, such as Raeburn, nor a Frenchman such as David or Ingres, would not have approached the task in quite the same way. It might be the slight “staginess”, or the understatedly confident poise that Lawrence invokes, but it is undoubtedly “English” in its every sensibility.

'Envoy Extraordinary' 12”x9” Glue tempera on canvas

Fishy Alchemists

‘Paracelsus’ 12”x9” Glue-size tempera on canvas

The finished fish-glue tempera painting of Paracelsus.

Being a glue-size work it does have a different aesthetic to an oil painting. For one thing overpainting is extremely difficult, subsequent applications very easily lift off previous paint.

Because of this, in many ways it behaves rather like fresco secco in the method that the image is most easily built up in "slashes" and "dabs". As a painting medium it also has some similarities to buon fresco in that it can lift off the support as buon fresco can off its wet plaster surface. However, once dry it's pretty sturdy, and with a modern varnish it's permanent.

It's hard to really get across just how famous Paracelsus was in his time, he really was one of the first great "modern" medical doctors that broke away from the previous Medieval concepts of the body. Paracelsus’ Latin motto is "Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest" which means "Let no man belong to another who can belong to himself." However, it's a slightly clumsy rendering and could also be rendered as "A man that knows himself can never be another's slave".

A Copy of a Copy of a Lost Painting

‘Paracelsus’ 12”x9” Glue-size tempera on canvas

This is the underdrawing of a partial copy of a copy by Sir Peter Paul Rubens of a painting by Quentin Matsys (Quinten Matsijs) of the famous early 16th century doctor, surgeon, medical philosopher and alchemist, Paracelsus. 

Paracelsus (1493-1541) was a giant of early medicine; he founded toxicology and had the insight that some diseases have psychological roots. Paracelsus also discovered hydrogen but didn’t realise that it was a new element, so is not credited with its discovery.

This is an example of a wholly different type of painting, one that once was ubiquitous and hugely successful, but now hardly exists, being a glue-size tempera painting on canvas.

It’s strange to think that most Medieval paintings were produced in this medium, but virtually none exist now (I can only think of a few, the best known being a Dieric Bouts ‘Entombment’ in the National Gallery in London). It’s chiefly due to the fact that they were made as banners, wall hangings, flags, screens… pretty much anything really, but all items that don’t usually survive, especially as the medium is easily damaged by water and insects.

Matsys’ original painting was most likely however an oil on panel piece (as is Ruben’s copy, and as are the few other anonymous copies that also exist), but I wanted to do a glue-size tempera (I used fish-glue). I paint a few of these a year as they are very rapid drying and have a certain pale charm about them. However, largely I just like doing them.

I have only laid in a quick drawing using yellow ochre glue-tempera at this stage (sadly a rather bad photo). This amount of underdrawing is enough to get started with, the rest I can "eyeball" in later. Glue-size tempera has the advantage that if you work fast wet-on-tack can be done, but is still pretty fast drying. I will reasonably rapidly work this up with additional painting and water washes to blend in areas. As a medium glue-size tempera also has the property of being reversible, so I will protect the final painting with a spirit based picture varnish. Good modern varnishes, of course, were something that they didn’t have in the Middle Ages.

‘Paracelsus' by Rubens c.1615-1620 Oil on panel