Thomas Tuchel

When I asked ChatGPT for feedback on Miles Davis, it started raving about how that painting looked like a constellation against a starry background, so I thought I’d have another go at creating that effect. I picked out a photo of England manager Thomas Tuchel, attracted by the dark background and by the hard edges down the left of the face and the lost edges out in the right. The perfect source photo for today’s exercise. For the colours, I went for the Shire scheme. I wanted a colour scheme where a starry background would work but wanted to vary away from the blue scheme that I used for Miles.

I started by following my usual process for posterised paintings. But when the masking fluid came off I wasn’t happy with the likeness. Closer examination, and dropping imaginary lines tyres of the eyes to where I was supposed to have features of the nose and mouth, revealed a lot of errors that had crept in during the painting as a result of my pencil outlines of the dark areas not having been visible in many places. The corrective actions I had to make included rewetting and lifting off bits of Shire grey from the darks and from the shadow under the nose in particular.

I’m not 100% happy with the final result. I think the problem is with Herr Tuchel’s left eye: if I cover that up then the likeness is vastly improved. But I do like the way that his head looks like an oddly shaped rock floating in space: that’s a big positive. And this one’s certainly worthy of a place in the shop window. It’s up for sale, with the price to be found here.

If you’re a PAOTY judge visiting, I know how David Brent felt when he said “That was me on a seven.”