It’s become easier to draw portraits, now I understand that you have to draw what you see, rather than what you think you see.
You have to change your perspective.
You’re not drawing an eye (your brain plays tricks on you and makes you draw it wrong). You’re drawing a circle, within a circle with a blob of light, within an oval shape with pointed ends receding into the shade.
As soon as you start breaking down a face into components of light, shade, and shapes it loses some of the fear associated with capturing a likeness.
A Passion For Portraits
My portrait journey started with pastel copies of Vincent van Gogh’s self-portraits. I’d dabbled in art for years, but it wasn’t until I saw the original version of his 1888 Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin, that I sat up and paid attention.
Here’s what van Gogh had to say about his self-portrait:
My portrait, which I am sending to Gauguin in exchange, holds its own, I am sure of that. I have written to Gauguin in reply to his letter that if I might be allowed to stress my own personality in a portrait, I had done so in trying to convey in my portrait not only myself but an impressionist in general, had conceived it as the portrait of a bonze, a simple worshiper of the eternal Buddha…It is all ashen gray against pale veronese (no yellow). The clothes are this brown coat with a blue border, but I have exaggerated the brown into purple, and the width of the blue borders. The head is modeled in light colours painted in a thick impasto against the light background with hardly any shadows. Only I have made the eyes slightly slanting like the Japanese.
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to his brother, about his portrait
This painting was part of a travelling van Gogh exhibition at LACMA (The Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art). The photo doesn’t do it justice. There’s immense movement in the background that circles his head like a halo, and the brush strokes and use of light and shade, create something ethereal. I was transfixed by the way it was painted, and stood and studied the brush stokes and colours as other visitors passed ambled past this odd portrait with nothing more than a cursory gaze. It wasn’t until I wandered away that I realised I had tears in my eyes. I’ve had music move me to tears before, but never a painting.
My passion for van Gogh and portraits was born.
My van Gogh Self-Portraits
Van Gogh was a prolific self-portrait painter, and my plan was to create a copy of every one of them. At the time I was working on a Bachelor’s Degree, and was doing a project about van Gogh’s mental illness and its relationship with his creative output. I got bored with his face, long before I worked my way through his collection of portraits.
His wasn’t the only face I studied. Amongst others, I did a charcoal portrait of Bob Marley and my self-portrait in pastel. But then I veered away from sketching and pastels and onto watercolours. There was no way I was going to attempt a watercolour portrait…until now.
Stay tuned for my new portraits….
