Shaun Wallace, The Dark Destroyer

In yesterday’s Bob Willis portrait, I felt a bit frustrated at how difficult it was to get a likeness using oil pastels when the face was so small.  It was like trying to build a Lego model wearing boxing gloves.  So today I thought I’d have a go at a l more full on portrait.  Today’s model is Shaun Wallace from The Chase, also known as the Dark Destroyer.  He’s always struck me as the sort person that I could enjoy a beer with, despite only being an accountant.

I really struggled with the likeness today.  I redid the eyes, nose and mouth numerous times.  The mouth was where I had the most problems: the size, position, shape and colour all caused me problems at various times and I’m still not happy with how it ended up.

I’m not that keen on these backgrounds either.  I would leave them out if I could leave a nice white background behind the subject but my paper always end up covered with my dabs, so that idea is a non starter.   Today the background came in quite handy, allowing me to overlap the right side of Shaun’s face and narrow it a bit.

I do like the colours today though.  I like all those impressionistic reds, blues, golds and greens in the top of the face and the bottom of the face, even if they don’t match after I overworked the bottom half looking for a likeness.  No reaching for the burnt sienna and raw umber for a gentleman of colour!  The sunlight on the left side of Shaun’s head is also great.  I also like the ear, although once I’ve told you it looks like a slab of meat, you can never I see that.

Because of the lack of likeness, this one won’t be going up for a sale.  But I’m not going to call it a failure.  The colours and highlights make this a big success – it’s just that this was a successful experiment rather than a successful painting.