Three Ball Charlie

This is my first painting for eleven days. It started off as a break of a few days but then I entered a correspondence chess tournament, started reading a history book, started watching the first test match of the summer, watched some football on the telly,went down with a back injury and got into a grump after being rejected by LAOTY (as a wildcard as well as a poddie). The back’s still a problem and the chess isn’t over yet (two games of the eight still going but one effectively over) but otherwise there’s no longer anything to distract me from painting, so I’m back in the saddle today.

To gently get back into the groove, I went for a portrait using the crystalline watercolours. The usual three value plan, with whites masked out, darks created by brushing water through crystals and mediums created at the end by spraying crystals with water and dabbing the paper dry. Today’s subject is Three Ball Charlie, a sideshow act from the 1930s. He would wow the crowds by fitting a tennis ball, a golf ball and a pool ball all into his mouth at the same time. His face appears on the cover of Exile On Main St. by the Rolling Stones.

Because I wanted to leave so much white background, I tried saving masking fluid by only using it for the first 8-10mm around Charlie and covering the rest of the background with masking tape. I won’t try this again: some paint managed to get underneath the tape in places. So, like with the Stephen Mangan painting, I added a background using an opaque colour. I went for cadmium yellow today to harmonise with the yellow bits in Charlie’s face and to contrast against the complementary purples.

The final version is OK but not brilliant. It’s going up for sale with the price to be found here. The medium tones feel a bit too dark to me and not distinguishable enough from the dark tones. But that’s how crystalline watercolours work: they’re always a lottery. I also find the number on the pool ball to be a bit too focussed, distracting the eye from everything else. But he’s still interesting. Crazy subject, crazy painting.