Portraits of Short People
These are something I don't find easy, but I'd like to do more of. They're much harder than life drawings. With life drawings, you never see the model again, and your memory can be adjusted to fit the picture. Portraits are almost always indefinably, frustratingly not quite the person they're of. Anyway: I'm getting better, and I'd love to do more, so if you don't mind me drawing you let me know.
Polly Pissed (on New Year's Eve 1998)
1999
oil on a piece of wood I found on the ground
I've drawn Polly a lot . She tried to object at first, but has finally given in. I like drawing her. She looks good. This is the only Painting I've done of her, and it's from a photo (without consent). They say portraits from photos lack feeling. I don't think this photo (of a painting of a photo) does the painting justice. I've messed around with brightness and contrast to try to minimise the reflection of the flash, and lost some oomph, but i think the painting has Polly-feeling to it. New Years Eve 1998-9: We were in some pub that keeps changing its name, on Sid James Street in Nottingham, and we were absolutely steaming. They were showing the Magic Roundabout episode with the blue cat on a big screen. Either Lindsey or Vanessa took this Photo of Pol doing a Marilyn Monroe style pose. Later we ended up at Carwash '70s night. It's painted on a big thick block of wood found behind my house on Second Avenue, bath. The Background colours (maroon and a gold and cream border not visible on this photo - I really should take another) are loosely based on a painting what I like, of an interior of a church , by Pieter Saenredam (I can't find the exact painting with the maroon tapestries on the net, but they're all beautiful and kinda similar). Her eyes do exist, every now and again I try to add them to this painting, but it always looks rubbish. Maybe one day I'll get 'em right. Until then, it seems to me to work without them, for some reason. (They were almost closed.) Hmmm....
| Polly Asleep on an Airbed at the Edinburgh Festival pencil on paper 2001 |
Polly Sitting Back to Look at It pencil on paper 2002 |
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| When you try to cram lots of people into accommodation for less than lots, airbeds are useful and surprisingly comfortable. The curvy-lines-for-skin-straight-lines-for-fabric approach, I nicked from Japanese watercolours. The moral of the story is "When you're asleep you can't object to being drawn". |
...on our sofa. I'm trying to persuade her to let me put her paintings onto a website (They're very good). Then I could give you a link to the painting she's sitting back and looking at. |
| Tim Mending My Computer pencil on paper 2002 |
Polly Using My Computer, Which Is Now Working pencil on paper 2002 |
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| My old computer, started to die. Tim came round several times and sat up long into the night trying to fix it. I couldn't follow half of what he was doing, but it'd have been rude to leave him to it, so I drew him. We thought there was a software problem. It wasn't. In retrospect it was all futile, but I drew a good picture of him. Thanks again to Tim for the time! |
The computer kinda worked a bit for a while, anyway. Here's Polly using it, as drawn from the same position as the Tim one (I felt I was on a roll). It's not a flattering picture. She hates it. The chin is wrong, for a start. The hair was fun to do, when ever I needed to relax from trying to get the face right. |
| Shh! Pol's Out Cold on the Sofa (She's working 10 days in a row) pencil on paper 2002 |
abi pencil on paper 1996 or 7 |
Katie pencil on paper 2002 |
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| Barr Playing Computer Games on My Phone in Wales pencil on paper 2000 |
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| Half-spaniel, half-boy: David Barrett has the power to to play computer games and worry that he's too fat when he isn't (hence real and imagined positions of stomach - added after he faffed at me). This is what he's doing here, in a big ol' house on our splendid holiday to Pembrokeshire. It's a simple picture, but I think it sums up that kind of relaxed holiday morning. Doing nothing and feeling happy. There was a big room full of people talking, watching TV, playing table tennis and being hung over throughout most of this holiday. It was a good un. |
| Sarah Reading about Oppressive Dichotomies pencil and crayon on paper 2000 |
Happy House pen on paper, photocopied and posted everywhere 1999 |
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| After going to our life-drawing class in Walthamstow, we were always in the mood for more drawing. Sometimes I crashed at her halls (rather than trekking right out to sunny Catford only to return to London first thing in the morning) and we'd draw each other. Here she is doing her anthropology homework. The poster coming to life in the background is a blown op copy of a wicked photo of the sea somewhere hot, as taken by Ed. The fish is a cardboard model I made from a book of these given to me by Barrett. | Whatever happened to Paul the Tool? Boy, was he a git. Anyway, after we booted him out we needed a new house-mate. This poster went up everywhere around the university. There we are: Me, Arron, Barr and abi. An attempt to minimise facial features to the fundamentals, yet still catch the personality. Did it work? Anyway: The poster worked. Sarah Kelly moved in. We all liked her (Until she disappeared without paying any bills, and it turned out she'd borrowed money from Barr too - happy, happy house). |
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