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During the weeks leading to the filming of PAOTY I would stare at my submission self-portrait. What was it that made the judges choose this piece?
Guesses included:
The colour palette being quite limited and muted;
The textured background (which had been unplanned as I had painted over another painting)
The nose (the nose was my favourite bit)
After filming my guess it that the painting felt contemporary in style. That it had an artistic hand that was different to something they'd seen before and that it wasn't hyper-realised.
In order to avoid my work looking like someone else's and to try to recreate the approach I took to the self-portrait, I textured my wooden panel using acrylic paint. This made for a very interesting surface to work on, especially with thin washes. I will certainly consider this approach again when working on new pieces.
As mentioned in my previous blog post, I also chose my palette carefully and stuck to it throughout my practice. My most used colour for skin tones was… surprisingly, violet! Mixed with burnt sienna or with yellow ochre it transformed the paint into exactly the colours I wanted to work with.
I also took this opportunity to move my palette away from the, quite traditional, cadmium red to a scarlet which was more akin to cadmium red light or vermillion. To non-painters, the difference is a slightly more orangey red rather than a blue-red. It's made a significant difference to my portrait practice.
The other important thing was to think about what to pack. I took too many tubes of paint due to a ridiculous fear I would run out. I needn't have worried about that as I wasn't suddenly about to use 3 tubes of each colour for the one portrait. The other error was that I bought my own lighting with me, just in case the lighting on the day was terrible. I needn't have bothered carting the heavy light all the way to the Battersea Arts Centre along with my suitcase and a box filled high with heavy tubes of paint! On the day, the studio thoughtfully changed the lighting as the starting signal was given. Even though there were no dramatic shadows there was enough to work with.
The show will air on Wednesday 15th October at 8pm. Following which I will let you in on more of the behind the scenes of the big day itself.
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