Could It Be Magic?

Today I quite fancied putting dry pigment down on the paper and wetting it. I’d already picked out a photo of Barry Manilow that might look good but it was only while out in my walk this morning that I decided to go for the crystalline watercolours rather than Inktense pencils or Artgraf blocks.

The methodology followed that for my second portrait of Kevin Keegan. So:

• I pushed my source photo through the Notanizer app to create a three value plan (highlights, lights, darks)
• I put down a pencil drawing showing only the boundaries between those three values
• I masked out almost all of the whites (I left a lot of the background unmasked today) and spattered on some masking fluid spots
• I sprinkled crystallised watercolour everywhere except in the background, generally trying to get dark colours in the dark areas and lighter colours in the lights
• I wet all the crystals in the dark areas with a small brush, trying not to mix them with the brush but allowing them to mix naturally everywhere
• The more I brush at the crystals, the more they mix to a dark colour, so I did a little more brushwork on the eyes and mouth to help them stand out
• Once dry, I looked over all the light areas and sprinkled on crystals in any empty looking spaces
• I sprayed water over all the light areas and dabbed them a mit with a paper towel to lighten them. I also went over Barry’s left shoulder to darken it slightly and to create a hard edge
• I removed all the masking fluid
• After I saw there were some rogue marks and crystals in the background, I brushed in some wet vertical marks to harmonise things. And that was me done.

This medium never ceases to amaze me. First, I never have any idea how the colours (and therefore the mood of the painting) will come out. All I see are red, blue and yellow crystals and a labels on the bottles that I can compare to my swatches. And second, it takes a long time for the painting to take shape. It’s never until the masking fluid is removed that it even looks like a painting. On Masterchef the other day I saw someone coat a fish in a thick layer of salt and bake it. It wasn’t until he got it out of the oven and chipped away all the salt like a palaeontologist that he got to find out whether everything had worked. I know that same feeling. the big reveal at the end is the reason why I’ve named this painting after one of Barry’s songs. Sometimes there are track names that fit a portrait better than the name of the subject. Like my one of Roger Waters.

And I do like how this one ended up. The likeness is there in the eyes and the gaze. The mood has come out more somber than I was expecting and it looks a bit as if he’s rotting away. But rather than looking at this and seeing rot, I look at it and I see (i) a life lived, and (ii) a “This is me and if you don’t like it that’s your problem” attitude befitting of someone forced to keep his sexuality a secret for years. Barry’s up for sale.