Gary Delaney

I’ve painted quite a comedians this year. And in each case it was the face that drew me in. Comedians tend to have faces that make great portrait material. While I’ve not yet painted a comedian that doesn’t make me laugh, I still thought it was about time I painted one of my favourite comedians. There couple that I keep coming back to on YouTube. The other won’t will have his day in the sun at some point but I thought I’d kick off today with the legend that is Gary Delaney.

This is a posterised painting using the amber colour scheme. So after coming up with a value plan in the Notanizer app, I laid in three glazes in transparent yellow, Winsor red and French ultramarine. The choice of colour scheme was based on the orangey look of Gary’s hair in my source photo and the hope that it could create a “live under the lights” feel to the painting. I used making fluid to reserve the white highlights and to create a starry background.

I’m relieved to say that this feels like a return to form. The glasses, eyes and ear are all great but it’s the mouth that pleased me the most here as a smiling portrait is really difficult to get right. And some bits of that dark background have a red tinge and some a blue. Looks good. Yeah, a decent day at the office today. Gary’s up for sale.