Edith Keeler

Star Trek’s on five night a week on Legend Xtra at the moment and has already inspired one painting. Tonight’s episode is The City On The Edge Of Forever, the greatest ever Star Trek episode and one that inspired a (not great) painting a few years ago. I thought I’d have another go at this episode, with a portrait of Edith Keeler, played by Dame Joan Collins.

I could have done another posterised portrait in watercolour but was in the mood for something different, so I went for the Artgraf blocks and the fineliner pens.

With a painting like this, the fineliners do most of the work, so I got down an accurate drawing and filled in all the dark areas (with help from the Notanizer app) using the brush pen and added in a few outlines. I spattered in a starry background with making fluid but most of the mask came off when I was adding the colour, with only the (accidental) moon to the left of Dame Joan surviving. I added loads of colour with the dry blocks, using yellow, blue, green and my three reds. I vaguely tried to use more blue in the background and in Joan’s too and to leave highlights white but it was all pretty random. Then I wet all the colour with a brush. The wetting was fast and loose today, with fast cross cross mark making in the background and a little more care in the face, where I made sure to brush yellow into dark colours and not vice versa.

When I stood back from the painting, it was clear to me that that Joan’s top and the background needed to be darker, so I went over these again with the blue and the reds. To wet this new layer, rather than using a brush again, I dabbed at the dry marks with a wet ball of kitchen paper and this created an interesting cloudy effect, which I liked. Finally, I cut out a mask to place over Joan’s face and then spattered white gouache everywhere for the starry background that the character deserved. And that was me done.

This one’s OK but not perfect. It could do with more white highlights – I’d have lifted some colour off if I could but the Artgrafs are big time stainers. And it sounds weird but the boundary between the dark background/top and everything else feels a bit too tidy. I can’t help thinking it would have looked better with the darks running into the face and facial colours running into the background in places. And maybe I could have used less black, left more to the viewer’s imagination. Still, this is definitely worthy of a place in the shop window, with the price to be found here.

If you’re a PAOTY judge looking around, I should point out that this isn’t a style I plan on using if selected for the competition; I’ll be creating posterised watercolour portraits.