Just another picture on the wall...

Hi guys. This is so weird. My counter just keeps going up everyday (and they are for 'unique' visitors as well!) and yet no one wants to write anything in my shoutbox! Please write something there, it's rather lonely!

So anyway, on Wednesday I had a day off Uni because I had a class cancelled and also a few things propped up for me to do during the day. In the evening, however, I had this sudden inspiration to paint a portrait. Yes, a PORTRAIT. I have never dared to tackle such a feat before because these things are terribly hard. I have this awful phobia of painting/drawing faces that don't look like the subject. I had no idea how I would pull it off but I just had this urge to do it anyway.

The main reason behind it was because the subject in matter - David Bowie dressed in his Scary Monsters outfit - really fascinated me. I loved how the make-up was so deliberately rough and incomplete. I loved the brush strokes on his face. I just wanted to like paint something like that! I didn't want to do it on *my* face 'cos that would just look totally dodgy. So I decided to paint the actual photo of him.

It took me a little under three hours, I think. Total about 3.5 hours but I had dinner and did the dishes in between ;).

Here it is:


I tried to reflect the incomplete and roughed out look on the painting itself and hence the background being the way it is. I didn't want to do a 'portrait-portrait' where everything was perfect. I wanted it slightly abstract and an art form - just like David's beautiful purdy face (!) - which explains the off-centre position of the face and as Sarah had suggested "the sand dune"-like clothing. Haha.

I had a very satisfying time painting the face. I did the whole thing in skin colour first and then went over with the white and blue so it felt like I was putting on the actual make-up on him myself ;) Haha. For me to do this though, the painting is in acrylic, rather than oil. Oils would just take forever to dry and I would have grown very impatient.

Not wanting to sound up myself or anything but I am actually really pleased with the result considering it was my very first time painting portraits. I feel so much better as a painter now that I have achieved this so I really wanted to share this enthusiasm with you! Before I never considered myself to have any good technical skills so consequently I leaned more to abstract painting. Having done this, I am more daring to try even harder things.

xx Georgina