Oliver Reed

I’ve had a photo of Oliver Reed as Bill Sikes in Oliver! sitting around for a while waiting to be painted and today was the day when I was finally in the right mood. The source photo was in black and white with lots of dark tones in it and the Notanizer app was coming up with great ideas for two value paintings, so just darks and highlights. I was interested mood for the Artgraf blocks this afternoon, so thought I’d try a simple posterised painting with them today.

So I put down a pencil outline, showing only the boundaries between the whites and the highlights. And then painted over all the highlights with masking fluid. I wasn’t worried about leaving the off tiny gap unmasked in the highlights as they would end up as little specs of colour and break punches white areas. The painting on of the masking fluid was the only time I had to paint with any real precision, the only time that really felt like painting.

Once the masking fluid was dry, I filled in all the remaining areas with pigment using the Artgraf blocks. This was a little tricky to do without disturbing the masking fluid but I managed to do it. For some of the smallish shoes like the mouth and the nose, I had to use the corners of the blocks. For the tiny shapes and the edges of the big shapes, I was confident that I’d be able to move some colouring during the wetting stage. Colour-wise, I used ll three reds, both yellows, the blue, the green and the lightest brown. I tried to use more of the blue and the brown in the darkest area, notably under the hat brim and around the eyes.

And then I wet all the paint, being careful to (i) mix the colours as little as possible, and (ii) cover all the unmasked areas, including those with no colour marks on them. As always I had no idea why to expect. But I was happy with the result.

And then I removed the making fluid and, as always (I know I’m repeating myself here) it wasn’t until I did this that the painting sprang to life. Wow! There were some small likeness problems but I corrected these easily by using the Artgrafs as pans, mixing up a neutral colour and adding. Few marks to the face and correcting the shoe of the right side of Ollie’s face. And that was me done.

And, yes, I’m happy with this one and he’s going up for sale. I’ve got the likeness and the (metaphorical as well as literal) darkness around the eyes. But there’s also lots of bright colour in this one, which give him some Willy Wonka vibes but also suggest deception as those colours on the outside don’t reflect the evil beast on the inside (I’m referring to Bill Sikes here, not to Ollie).