Playing with the charcoal yesterday got me thinking about painting people again. Sara, Seth and Lenni were planning to go into York, so I tagged along. No shopping for me. I planned to photograph people and have a look for the peregrine falcons that reside on the minster. My first stop when we got there was the minster. As soon as I lifted the binoculars to my eyes, there was a female on the north tower; exactly where @yorkperegrines (twitter) reported her an hour or two earlier. Fantastic. I haven't seen many peregrines; I saw one as it flew over my head as I was kayaking a couple of years ago, a pair that live on Lincoln cathedral, and magically, three, that Sara spotted, circling above our house last year. They were ushered away, towards York in fact, by a buzzard. Anyway, I watched her preen for a while, then I went off to photograph people.
This painting is a mixture of charcoal, pastel and emulsion paint. It's on a piece of lining (wall)paper glued to a board. I completed the charcoal part sat in the garden, then moved into the studio to add the pastels and paint.
I decided to extend the hair out of the picture, because I liked the design. It reminded me of some of David Bailey's sixties portrait photos. All simple black and white shapes, with interesting cropping and negative spaces. However, as the painting progressed, it looked a little too much like a 'beehive' hairdo, so after a day or too I cracked the emulsion back out and reworked the hair.
The extended hair worked well in charcoal...
...but not so well as the pastels were added.
Untitled.
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