The Final Portrait

I hope everyone reading this had a happy Christmas and great New Years. I realise it has been some time since the last update but I was given a fantastic opportunity to start working on a portrait commission for the Royal College of Surgeons here in Dublin. After I managed to get that in hand I spent the rest of the holidays getting to a point of near completion on my Venus project.

After mucking about with my pencil I finally decided to take the plunge and do the portrait…have a look at the effort so far!

I settled on the “Portrait 2” drawing that appeared in the November 15th update as it proved to be the least fussy of all the drawings and would not draw the eye away from the main theme of the painting. Let me know what you think. I found that some of the other drawings, particularly the two newest ones included here in this update might make some nice independent paintings. I’ll have to give it some thought.

Thanks for reading!

Two More Sketches

Here are two more sketches for the portrait in the painting.

Third Video Update

Second Video Update

On The Portrait

An interesting thing to note regarding the Rokeby Venus is that the image portrayed in the mirror is not faithful to the laws of optics. Given the position of the mirror, Venus should not have been able to see herself. In her place, one should see the observer or the painter standing behind her. It is also interesting to note that the face in the mirror is not reduced in size. Mind you, having a 1:1 ratio is possible if the mirror being used happens to be concave and not the standard flat face mirror. By including a mirror, one can only conjecture that Velazquez wanted to form a complete idea of the woman’s beauty and by taking liberties with the optics, he was able to do so.

For my part I wanted a faithful portrait of the woman as well, yet I did not wish to make the same concessions that Velasquez had. To this end I have decided to abandon the mirror concept altogether and in its place have the lady in attendance holding a painting of my Venus. Now, this presents two very interesting challenges.

Firstly, it is usually the artists endeavour to try and create the illusion of a three dimensional quality on a two dimensional surface and so we work with tone, light, values and colours in order to achieve our effects. It is an entirely different thing to paint a painting in a painting and have it look like a three dimensional form locked onto a two dimensional surface. In a sense I am trying to make the internal portrait less real than the reality of the Venus contemplating it.

The next and perhaps most daunting task is to make the image conform to a second perspective. Not only do I have to do a portrait, but a portrait (with its own set of perspectives) conforming to an environment involved in its own set of vanishing points.
Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

On a personal note, I find this more challenging than just painting the reverse of my Venus’s face. So, with brush and paint to hand, once more into the breach!

My previous post included drawings what I thought might look nice as a portrait. Again, drawing is where all the problems and possibilities have their say. I always find it interesting when the time arrives to actually throw it on the canvas to see how it fares!

The Attendant

Here are a few more drawings for those of you interested in having a look at the on-going sketching process. I have a detail of the hands holding the picture frame as well as two ideas for the actual picture that she would be holding. More will be on their way but I’m leaning towards the second portrait drawing as I feel the first one may detract a little from the main theme.

I really like this pose of Venus’s attendant and so I did a drawing of it, stood back from the canvas (which already had the selected pose worked out on it), held it up to where she would be posed and had a look at how the overall relationships worked. Again, the picture she is holding in the drawing is at too slight an angle for my purposes and although I had her back in the studio to repose, it was impossible for her to hold the same position and have the frame at the angle I wanted it. Ah well, we do our best! At least I got a lovely drawing out of it!

Starting on the Canvas