I've had a second go at Wilson today. After painting Wilson and Walker the first…
Sergeant Arthur Wilson
I was away for a few days for a wedding in Leeds last weekend and just started playing in a correspondence chess tournament. With too much brain invested in the chess and not wanting it distracted by creativity and by a messy desk, the painting is currently on hold. But I do need to keep in practice, so thought I’d risk some portraiture with the marker pens and kick off a new collection.
I have my eight source photos ready but no real plan for any overall methodology. Instead I’ll take the first few as they come and see which way they’re pointing.
First up is Sergeant Arthur Wilson, played by John Le Mesurier. I wanted to get as much of this portrait as possible done in monotone and selected a dark grey as a main colour. After putting down a pencil outline (using a grid) I coloured in all the darkest bits with the dark grey. Once the grey was down it was clear the painting needed some mid tones, so I added these with a lighter grey and with a flesh colour. And that was me done.
Wilson’s recognisable but not perfect. As is always the case with these marker portrait collections, the real test will be when all eight portraits are viewed together, so we’ll see.
I did come up with a second portrait after this one but it’s looking a little bit unbalanced so I’m not putting it in a post just yet. I’m going to take another look at it tomorrow and then maybe make some changes.
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