Self-portrait by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Problem
You arrive home with your paintings done on holiday.
Now you have more time. You have space. No need to pack up and go back to the hotel. Your work can stay on the kitchen table or desk.
First you feel pleased and proud. Then you think:
AMATEUR? / PROFESSIONAL?
AMATEUR?
1 That's a bit basic, amateur. A five-year-old could have done that.
No.
Even if they could, on the other hand, it has a certain primitive charm. Like Rousseau. Like Toulouse Lautrec. Like impressionists.
PROFESSIONAL
Better at a distance. The artist is always painting close up. I can hang it on a wall and stand at a distance. Very effective.
Other people liked it. They didn't just say, "Oh - is that yours? Interesting ..." They said, "That's you! It's a good likeness. I like the frame. Very original."
I didn't think it was original. I thought I'd seen many 'frame' pictures before. There's a famous painting in the National Gallery in London, showing the artist at his easel, in the distance.
Why the frame?
a) I drew exactly what I saw. That included the frame.
b) I wanted to include the frame. If I see something near the focus of my painting, such as a doorway or window frame I will often include it, or move it sideways or downwards into the picture.
Signature as Metaphor
I must make more effort to make this a signature, or permanent feature of my paintings. My other feature of self-portraits is my hand holding the pen or pencil or watercolour pencil.
Signature as Signature
I also have a signature in which my hand is drawing the signature. But that takes up space. The frame and the signature can distract from the subject of the painting.
Yet, when I am painting a self-portrait, a hand holding a pencil is appropriate. Why? Firstly, because it mirrors reality at that moment. For that moment in time, I was stopped as a painter. I was not busy, active, laughing, moving, cooking, cleaning, chatting. I was still, frozen, silent, concentrating, contemplating, peaceful, painting.
Secondly, the hand, although secondary to the eyes which want to engage with you, makes an additional statement that I want to be permanently known, remembered, identified, classified, honoured, as a professional painter.
However, when I am drawing somebody else, I want to concentrate on them, their eyes, their mouth, not distract. However, you should be able to come back to a painting later, or a second time in quick succession, and notice details which you did not spot at first glance.
Years ago I read an article or book about photography which said that you should look for a frame for your photograph. Now I always look for a tree to frame a photo of a building such as a skyscraper or church or group of people.
In a painting, the artist always has the opportunity to be creative and insert a frame for the top, sides, and often forgotten bottom front of the picture.
Susan taught us to draw a pencil frame about an inch around all four edges of our paper so that the picture would not have details at the edge which end up covered by the frame nor an inner mount.
(I have often found that y signature is half covered by the mount or frame. I have so many paintings and photos that I have run out of space on my walls.
My family are tidy-minded. They keep removing pictures because they hate clutter. They want space and uninterrupted clean walls.
Perhaps unconsciously they want no distractions from little squares behind when they are talking to you. They also want you to focus on them when they speak, not admiring paintings over their shoulder.
b) I Like a picture to be self-framing. I like the arch of a doorway or arch in a church. Trees surrounding a lake.
The traditional parallel lines of the railway. Or path from the front and sides of the picture narrowing almost A shape to the centre of the horizon. Do you remember the classic advertisement for Start-rite shoes, little feet have far to go, showing a pair of boy and girl toddlers or small children, seen from back view walking into the distance, down a pale road edged by darker trees?
PENCIL LINES
I must be more professional. I must rub out the pencil lines.
I often get out a sketch book from last year and look at a caricature. I immediately notice pencil lines and start rubbing them out.
COLOURS
I must intensify the colours. Add colours. Edge with black waterproof pen.
WATERPROOF PEN
I always buy washable pens. I put pens in my pockets and they leak over my clothes.
However, on Writers' Holiday, Susan Alison loaned us waterproof gel pens. The advantage is that if you want to add watercolour paint afterwards, you black pen outlines, eg across the top of the head, don't leak into the colours or blonde hair below nor smudge uneven grey into the white paper above.
I must tone down the absurd unnatural oblongs on the sky.
Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author, illustrator, caricature artist. (I have several more posts about paintings and painting holidays. Please bookmark and share and tweet your favourite posts.)
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