One down, one to go!

After all these weeks of working on it, I cay say the magic words - "Its finished!"



There's a good feeling of achievement, of a job well done, of reaching the goals I'd set myself. To produce a picture of Fitzy's "fantasy willie" so that it doesn't look immediately like what it actually is, to paint it as a fun and exciting picture, to put some clever technical details in it so that the eye is tricked into some deception over the subject. And this finished painting is tighter on the design than the working painting that I did, more finely tuned, I think. Plus, it's painted on a large block canvas, so I've painted the four sides as a continuation of the main painting, which means that where ever it hangs, the finished image will look more "padded" than just a flat 2-D image in a frame would.

I love the way that the more I look at it the more I see different shapes within the picture - I can see a bird, a fish, an elephant, an oak leaf, a whale tail, and various letters of the alphabet. I love the flowing lines, the changes of colour, the way the eye wanders over the image and finds interest in the different shapes and contours, the way some of the colours mutate into other colours, the flat colour a good contrast to the softer tones painted thinly on the canvas and letting the white of the canvas below it to shine through. Even though the glazing technique that I've used here is really a watercolour technique, it works well enough on the large canvas and makes the painting more delicate in a way, than just flat colour does. Having said that, this is the most masculine of images, so it needs some good deep colour in the painting too, so that it is strong and powerful, and the areas of black paint certainly help to anchor the lighter colours within the painting. So, I'm really pleased with it. Infact, absolutely delighted with it, and Fitzy is too, so he tells me, so that's two happy bunnies over this painting!!! LOL

And just to make the point, that the colours on the canvas are far stronger and yet more subtle than the image here shows. I think it's the sort of painting you can never tire of - partly for the subject matter, the vibrant colours and flowing shapes within it, and the hidden shapes that appear to each person who views it, in different ways. Fitzy said he could see a fire breathing dragon, and tigers stripes in his first viewing of this picture..... and more images will appear, I'm sure! That's what I love about my pictures, when other images appear to different people.......

So, it's done.

But I haven't finished. Not by a long way.

Because now I can start on the "living flame" picture that Fitzy also wants as a sibling to this one. They will hang together, so the colours need to match and enhance each other. I wanted to paint this one first, as the colour was applied flat in places, so by doing those first I got a good feel to how the canvas and paint react together. All surfaces react in different ways, and different paint does too - watercolours, gouache, acrylic and oils all have different feels to them on the brush, and how they are applied to the surface they sit on, and how absorbent that surface is - whether its watercolour papers, and all of those react in different ways too, board, gesso'd board, and canvas, all of those are different in their surfaces and absorbency, so it made sense to get the "feel" of the paint on the canvas before I started the tricky painting, and the living flame will be a bit tricky as it is created by "glazing" the paint.... in that a transparent colour is applied to the canvas (say pink) , then another translucent colour will be applied over the top (say yellow), allowing the lower colour to shine through the top colour (creating orange, in this example) - its a way of colour mixing on the surface, and is far more interesting to look at than just painting one colour.

So, that's it, one down, another to go! :)

Behold - a Tarse!

I've been working diligently on the working painting for Fitzy's "Fantasy willie" painting, and last week I sent him the image for his feedback which I want to be favourable before I start the painting proper on canvas, as he has requested. But after I sent it I felt I wasn't totally happy with it. You see, a willie looks like, well, a willie! And its difficult to hide the shape of it. And the whole point of the "Fantasy fannies" was that the image was hidden. Of course, a fanny is an abstract shape to start with, that helps, but a willie isn't. Infact, its quite....................well..... specific! :)

And that was my problem, and the challenge was to make it look not like a willie, but the shape still there, within the painting....... So, I did the first painting, which is a working painting anyway, and sent it to Fitzy for his feedback. But whilst he was thinking about it, and before he had chance to respond fully with his thoughts regarding it, I decided that I could do better. So, I had another go, and am FAR happier with the result. The image is far better hidden within the colours of the paint. The shapes are still there, but there are more techniques employed to hide the image.

So, here they both are - the first "In yer face" picture, and the second "far more subtle, there, Jackie" pictures. Either are ok as images, either would work as an abstract painting, but I know which I prefer! The colours are softer in the second painting too, which I think is a nice comparison with the "Fitzy living flame" image that it's to hang with, but it could be argued that the colours are more masculine in the first painting. They are still the same palette of colours, and the same that I used for the "Fitzy living flame" image, so they would all hang nicely together, and not clash.

And as for the name - I've found a lovely old English word - "Tarse" - which means "Male genitals" - which is exactly what they are! LOL But, if it was hanging on the wall and someone asked you what it was and you replied "Its an abstract of a tarse", they'd go "Oh!" because they wouldn't have a clue what a tarse is, like the fantasy fannies are called "Queyntes" - another old English word! So, this is my first tarse, but hopefully not my last! :) and if you look up the word tarse you'll find it also means *falcon* which is a nice meaning too for the word, I think! Oh, and its got a man logo in it, like the Queyntes have a woman logo in them, to remind you what it't about.

So, what do you think?

It works!

After starting the working painting for Fitzy the other week, and not being entirely happy with it, I re-started the second "working painting" soon after and was able to finish it this week. So, since I was happy with it, I now hoped that he would be! So, I sent him the image and awaited the reply......................

And................. He loves it! YAY! So, now I can get on and paint it properly onto the large canvas he wants it on as the finished piece.

It is slightly different to the original "Living flame" painting in that I've added a few more darks to this masculine image. The main reason being that a mans body is more "square" than the rounded shape of a woman, and because there are less curves within a masculine body, I had to take away from the symmetry of the image by changing the balance between light and dark, shown mostly as the blue tones and the light yellow tones here. I love the bright colours within the image though, and the use of the bright red in certain areas adds a zizz to the more muted tones. It was also interesting to see how the hands developed, in the original, I did the hands as two different colours and that idea didn't work at all. This one does though, with the subtle variation in colour between the lights and darks on the hands. There's also a lot of other colour happening in and around the body, the subtle changes in colour add a lot of vibrant interest to this image. I love it!!

And I love this style of painting. Its difficult to do, but I love the effect of it. And shall love transferring this image onto canvas. It means re-drawing the whole thing on to a larger surface, and it means starting the whole thing again, but now I have the "working painting" to work from, the thought process has gone into the original, and in theory all I need to think about now is the technicality of getting the image to look good on a large canvas as the finished piece.

But, before I do all of that, I have to do a working painting of the first "Fantasy Willie" that Fitzy wants to accompany this "Living flame" image of him. Because the two are to be hung as a pair, together, so the colours have to be the same, or at least not to clash. So, that will have to be painted before I can start the canvas of this painting, just incase there are any changes I have to make to this one before I start painting them both properly. They are siblings, and have to created as such.

Brothers in paint! :)

Actually, no, that's not quite right, they are both studies of Fitzy, so perhaps they are "aspects" rather than "brothers"............................... either way, they are connected to each other.

Hello, come in, take your clothes off.....

It was good to finally meet Fitzy this week after many emails back and forth and a few phone calls inbetween. I'd got a clearish few of him as a person, and a clear idea of what artwork he wanted from me, and a feeling about his thoughts regarding it. And I knew he was a little nervous at the thought of sitting for me. Its understandable!!! LOL But I try not to be too scary......... and I do know what I'm doing...........and I have had lots of experience of these matters.............. so ... I wasn't nervous, and I knew I had to allay his fears as much as I could.


Its like any new experience, the many thoughts in your head usually outweigh the reality!


So, we finally met, face to face. It was far easier for him to come to me, since I've got all my "tools of the trade" here. First tool ...... a hot drink! Tea for me!!! :) Coffee for him. And a chat, about anything really, because that communication is important for two people to get to know each other, you look at the body language, read the face, listen to the connotation in the voice, look at the eyes, and get to know about the person better. It makes for a good working relationship, for me, certainly. Because if I'm going to paint someone I like to know abit about them, it helps to be able to put that image of the person into the pose for the artwork. I'm not just creating an image, I'm looking for the essence, or soul of the person, to put that in too.....


So, on to work. Fitzy wanted three pieces of artwork doing - he loves the "Living flame" painting and wants a painting of himself done in that style. So, I needed to take photos of him to work from for the painting. It takes a long time to do that style of glazing painting, so its totally impractical to work from life for that painting. So, you would think taking photos would be easy, and it wasn't! Because I had to get the light right, and make sure I picked up the nuances of muscle tone, make sure I'd got all the detail in that I wanted.


Then on to the second piece of artwork that he wants - a Fantasy Willie painting. Infact he will be my first fantasy willie, which I'm very excited about! But because of that, I wasn't fully sure what I was looking for in the photos. With the fantasy fannies, they are abstract in shape to start with, so its easy enough to hide the image in the abstraction. But, a willie is more obvious! So, it took a few photos until I was happy with the image I'd got, and how I was going to create a painting from it! Success!!!


After a short lunch-break, it was time for the main reason for the visit - the sitting, whilst I drew him. I know he's had health problems and the very pose itself was probably going to be difficult for him. We discussed a standing pose as opposed to a sitting pose, and decided on the latter. But when I asked his thoughts on a pose, and he showed it to me, I knew from past experience that he would be in agony within five minutes from it. We discussed ideas and quickly settled on a simple seated pose, that would be comfortable for him, and would show to good effect his long legs. He also wanted a white on black drawing done, and to set up the lighting for those is a bit challenging, as I had to make sure that the light was creating interesting shapes on his skin, without lighting all of his body. This usually entails a low light off to one side, and although I have proper lights on proper stands, it turned out that the light itself had to be on a book, on a larger book, on a low stool, to create the correct lighting to satisfy me!!!! It might look very odd, but it worked!!!! LOL

On to the drawing............... I started with a blank piece of black card, and with a conte pencil in one hand, and a rubber in the other, I started. I know I'm a quick worker, but afterwards when I explained to Fitzy the thought process that had occurred through the drawing, I was surprised myself how much "thinking" I do. I first look at the pose, and work out the angles within it, I look at the blank paper and envisage those angles on it, I measure with my pencil, to make sure that the body that I'm drawing will fit on the paper (I sounds silly, but I've seen enough amateur artists miss out the feet at the bottom of the paper because they've not done this simple exercise!). Then I start to draw, to get the basic overall shape in, check the measurements again, and if need be adjust anything. Then I start to build up the body shape, gently drawing in all of it, slowly, bit by bit, until its all there, and then use the rubber to remove the parts I don't want. These are the bits that cause the interest. The pencil and the rubber working in conjunction with each other, to create the effect I want. And all this is done whilst the model sits still. And it helps enormously if the model CAN sit still. And Fitzy could, beautifully! He's a natural! So that helped greatly, that I could see the tiny details that I needed to put in the drawing to make it interesting.

Whilst all this is going on, I played my "art music" - thumping rock, bouncy pop, throbbing dance music, it all helps me to work quickly and easily and for the creative energies to flow. No music, and I'd be a lot slower!!! Fortunately Fitzy liked listening to it too, and said afterwards that it had helped him to get through the sitting, whilst he played a musical quiz in his head, as to which band was singing which song! He only needed one short break, but was able to sit long enough for me to produce this drawing. Its called "The thinker". I had originally thought that Rodins "The thinker" might be a good pose, but Fitzy thought it might be too reminiscent of Bruce Forsyth! MMM...I know what he means!!! LOL Anyway, here is the image I did of him.......

We sat chatting afterwards, about all sorts of things, and that was good to do. I know exactly how I'm going to do the paintings now and can't wait to get started on them......


Since then, Fitzy has emailed me to say a lot about his experience of being drawn by me, and is happy for me to quote some of them here:


"I was drawn to the title of one of your recent blog entries “Empowered” and it certainly was an empowering experience, but really it was so much more than that, I felt a great sense of achievement in becoming part of something that will last, well longer than me really.


I also found it a rather liberating experience as well.


.....your mention of a friend that works as a therapist, and they thought your Fantasy Fanny paintings could work well in a treatment room as a means of improving body image and perception about an intimate area of the body..... Anyway, that struck a chord with me as I have always had a very negative view of myself for all manner of reasons .... but I do feel so very positive about what I was able to achieve on Thursday and this is thanks in no small part to you. Now whether there will be any lasting benefits of course remains to be seen, but for the moment at least I really do feel very pleased and proud about what I have achieved and your drawing of me really is so much better than I could of ever hoped for, so thank you so very much for that and it was worth it at any price.

That reminds me of something I said to you a while ago when I joked about paying you thousands of pounds and do you know what, it really would have been worth it.

The day really did have such a profound effect on me and for that I will always be grateful, so thank you very much".

So, it looks like I didn't scare him, too much, and he, like my previous sitters, have found it a very positive and uplifting experience! That's good then!!!! That makes me happy.