John McVie

I’m still looking to come up with stuff in the same style as my Artist Of The Year submissions and that will hopefully impress any visiting judges. Today I went for a statuesque portrait, in a similar style to the selfie in my PAOTY entry. I’ve gone for John McVie as my subject, a bassist and the guy that put the Mac in Fleetwood Mac.

I’ve used four of the tundra supergranulators, just as before. For John’s face and clothes I’ve used the blue, the pink, the orange and the green but for the sky background I’ve left out the green and just used the blue, pink and orange. Tundra violet is (at least up to now) being left out of these statuesque portraits.

I normally start with a two value plan in the Notanizer app so that the darks on their own are enough to achieve a likeness, then move a slider to create more darks and go over the new darks with watery paint. But I forgot this technique today and went for a three value plan in the app. I ended up with a three value plan that achieved a likeness but if I turn all those midtones into highlights, the likeness won’t be there. It’s a very subtle thing that means the midtones are doing more work here than they should and that the portrait looks less statuesque than I wanted it to be. I don’t know why I’m telling you this: it’s something that’s not visible to the naked eye. The midtones on the t-shirt, though, weren’t part of the original value plan; I thought the T-Shirt was too large a simple white shape, so moved the sliders in the Notanizer app to give me some ideas about where to add some midtones.

The portrait is definitely worth putting up for sale: its price can be found here. The colours in the hat and jacket are amazing and there’s something going on with the sky, either radiating out from John or pointing in towards him. The midtone colours in John’s face and neck, though, have come out a uniform grey, with no blues, greens, pinks or oranges showing. This could be a good thing or a bad thing – I’m not sure. But we do have a gaze and the feeling of age. Yeah, I think this is fine.