Christine McVie And Lindsey Buckingham

Time to kick off the portrait season and to start impressing any visiting PAOTY judges. Today’s subjects are former Fleetwood Mac members Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham in an image taken from the cover of the Mirage album. I thought about going with a light background and tundra supergranulators in the style of this year’s selfie but decided in the end that the dark background was part of the charm and instead went for a three value posterised composition using the trippy scheme, even if it means I’ve painted Lindsey twice in this style (here’s the other one).

I followed my usual approach for paintings like this with a couple of extra steps. After having four drips of masking fluid fall on the painting, I decided to blow sharply on them through a straw to make them explode rather than leaving them to dry and rubbing them off. I thought about spattering on some masking fluid stars in the background but decided this would detract from the tiny spots marking out the edges of the two heads. The second extra step I took was to sprinkle some salt over the second, French ultramarine, layer: there’s a lot of dark in this painting and I wanted to make sure it was interesting. I’ve been reading a great book on Stalin this afternoon and this helped me leave the masking fluid and two paint layers long enough to dry for a change.

I see this one as a definite success and it’s up for sale, with the price to be found here. Lindsey’s likeness is excellent and Christine’s pretty good too. The exploding whites in the background frame the figures (a lucky accident) and there’s the sense of a story in there (for which credit to the designer of the album cover). PAOTY? Bring it on!