Painting the wonderful Annie Mac!

As winter draws near and with Scotland in virtual lockdown again what a wonderful tonic to see Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the week return on Sundays!

Reflecting on my portrait journey last time I realised how I loved experimenting with different media and being less afraid. These experiences are excellent practice with regards to how I approach the face and how to produce a work of art within a short period of time and ultimately a deadline. It keeps my practice focused and I thoroughly enjoy painting along with others and listening to the conversation between artist and sitter.

I decided to pick up where I left off the last time and start by using acrylics for this first portrait. Annie had sucha  beautiful face, it reminded me of a classical Roman statue. Again, to keep it basic I’m limiting myself to 6 colours: titanium white, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, cobalt blue, ivory black and raw sienna. In future sessions I may substitute raw sienna with raw umber, and I may just completely forego black one week and work with only five colours but what I love about using a limited palette is that I don’t get too bogged down in colour mixing.

I’m a lot happier handling oil paints however what I like about acrylic is that I can be more instinctive and can adjust without too much of the paint smudging. After a couple of minutes the paint is bone dry and any errors can be rectified quite quickly.

I intend to use this next series of Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Week to build on what I’ve learnt and experiment with some possible new techniques. I want to expand my mind and really go for it!