Cornelius

Ok so, as I said last time, I asked the spreadsheet on the iPad what to paint next it told me to paint a portrait using the Shire supergranulators and to do it in a more conventional style rather than the multiple layer glazes that I've been applying with advice from the Notanizer app.  For subject matter, I looked through my folder of photos for potential portraits and decided this one of Cornelius from the 1968 Planet Of The Apes film might work with the Shire colours.  It’s definitely Cornelius from the film and not Galen from the TV series - I checked.  Cornelius has been sitting in the waiting room since January when a former work colleague commented that my portrait of Ronnie Wood looked like Roddy McDowall in Planet Of The Apes.  Cheers Joe.

Cornelius is in Shire colours, as requested, and those Shire colours are joined, as usual, by their four hangers on: burnt sienna, cerulean blue, green apatite genuine and forest brown.

After putting down a pencil outline, I reserved some whites in the eyes and ears, some scribbled white highlights in the hair and spattered on some masking fluid in the background for stars, not that the background ended up as a night sky.

And then I just had fun painting.  I started with the dark shadows in the eyes, nose and mouth just to give me reference points for the rest of the painting.  As for the rest, well, the background is made up of burnt sienna, cerulean blue and Shire grey and was patted dry with kitchen paper to keep it light.  For the face there's Shire yellow everywhere and shadowy bits in Shire blue, green and olive in addition to the darks I started with.  The hair and torso, being dark, are mainly made up of a number of layers of green apatite genuine and of forest green with other colours charged in, most notably burnt sienna.  I probably put in one layer too many here and started getting cauliflowers.  When this happened, I stopped to let everything dry then added a single glaze of green apatite genuine and burnt sienna over the whole dark shape to bring it all together.

Once the masking fluid came off, I thought my highlights looked a bit too bright, so I glazed over all the hair and torso in Shire yellow and dabbed off some paint around the highlights in the hair.  I also added a little Shire yellow to the visible eyeball.  And that was me done.

There's a lot to like about this one.  The likeness is there - especially encouraging when I wasn't using the Notanizer app.  I know I've got the likeness because I'm expecting that nose to start twitching.  And the green colours worked out well, vindicating my choice of subject.  I'm less keen on the highlights, which look a bit scribbly, but they're not the sort of issue people pick up on unless they're looking for problems.  Cornelius is definitely worth putting up for sale.