Rupert Thomson

Back to painting today and I’ve had my first go at a portrait using the soft pastels. Today’s subject was the author Rupert Thomson.

I started by putting down a grid and an accurate drawing using a white charcoal pencil. Then I started by colouring the eyes and mouth in as detailed a manner as I could. After that, just a case of picking out whichever colours I fancied using and painting in big areas with the pastels on their sides. I say whichever colour; obviously I had one eye on values. Whenever I put down a layer of colour I’d ask myself whether I’d reached a good place to stop. If I had kit, I’d smooth out the colours with a finger, sculpting the volume of the face, and then add another layer. There are a lot of layers in this painting. In some of the layers I’d find myself redoing the eyes and mouth. Eventually I was ready to stop and just smoothed t( colour in a couple of places, leaving it still sketchy in some places.

Then I added in a background and smoothed it over. I had fun with colours but didn’t end up with as dark a background as I was originally intending. I simplified Rupert’s clothing to give him a classical bust-like neckline and decided to only hint at his shoulders with a bit more grey in the background. And that was me done.

I painted on the (rougher) back of the paper today. I didn’t notice any extra capacity within the paper but I did notice that every time I turned my back, the black paper would start showing through in spots, so maybe the pigment doesn’t stick as well to this side of the paper. I’ll be using the front side in future.

Colour-wise, I’m still missing purples, saturated yellows and saturated reds but black can now be added to the list. I found myself having to add some lines around the eyes using a black charcoal pencil. On the other hand, the limited selection of colours available to me does mean that the colours here are the most realistic on any of my portraits ever.

The final painting looks a bit like Rupert and, if I look closely enough, I can see his brain ticking. The likeness isn’t perfect, though, and I’m expecting everyone to tell me that this looks more like Steve Martin or Martin Kemp. Still, I’m putting this one up for sale, at least for now.