Sketches and the Beginning of the Portrait Project.

Following on from researching the work of Eugene Carriere, Augustus and Gwen John and Paula Modersohn Becker, and after numerous sketches with different people in different poses I decided to make a start on the Portrait Project.


This is the sketch I decided to work from for the painting. I like the diagonal elements in the composition, especially where there is a v shape created by the angle of the face and the shoulder. The strong contrast that will result from the pale white sheet and the darker tones in the clothing and bedsheets is also what drew me to this image above the others that I had sketched.

When I came to sketching it onto the sized but un-primed canvas, 50 by 75 cm, I became aware that the area in the bottom right was just too empty. I had thought it would be an "interesting" emptiness, creating a contrast to the rest of the painting, but it just looked odd. So I added an arm (drawn from memory, not observation at the time) coming out at a right angle. This balanced out the composition well and I was happy to add the first layer of paint.

Having also been studying the work of Lucian Freud for my critical review (and group portrait for the last project) I decided to include a lot of charcoal into the layers of paint, that's why it's been applied so thickly on the canvas sketch. I also realised, just as I was about to start painting, that subconsciously I've probably absorbed his subject matter into my choice of subject matter, namely the reclined figure, half asleep. I was worried that this choice of child asleep would be seen as sentimental, but I'm hoping that by following in his vein, and keeping the colours muted, and the tonal contrast strong it will come across as more interesting than sentimental.