The portrait photo

The original photo I found really interesting as it was an unusual angle. I also particularly liked his expression as it is quite ambiguous, it makes you think what he is actually thinking about.

The photo also had some great skin tones showing some blue purple shaded shadows and some slightly green skin tones round the stubble area.

The initial sketch

The initial sketch onto the canvas ( not shown here, I forgot to take a photo, this is a mockup on paper) is quick and very minimal. It is only there to provide the scaffolding to add the tonal version.

The only thing I really worry too much about is the position of the eyes, the mouth and the nose. The relationship of distance and angle of these is critical to get a likeness.

Details such as hair and clothing are all irrelevant as this stage.

Fixative

After I have done the initial pencil lines I use some charcoal/pastel fixative, its not actually meant for pencil drawings but it does the job. Without fixative any pencil graphite that comes into contact with the turps will smudge and taint the colours you put down over it.

Colours

Over a reasonable time I have narrowed down which colours I like to paint with to this range of 8.

They are (in order) Burnt Sienna, Chrome Orange, Burnt Umbra, Ultramarine Blue, Viridian, Titanium White, Alizarin Crimson and Yellow Ochre.

Brushes

This is quite unusual for oil painters, I generally like to paint the whole picture with only one brush. This is my favourite brush, the round tipped number 3.

These brushes are incredibly cheap at around £1.50, the whole range are strangely priced as every brush is the same price regardless of size.

They last very well and are of a better quality than most of the more expensive hogs hair brushes. The brush is totally synthetic and quite soft, they allow you to hold quite a lot of paint and can be used to paint thickly or are equally as good with a thin oil mixture.

As they are soft the brush strokes on your paintings tend to be slightly less visible than with harder hogs hair brushes.

The Palette

My palette is generally a complete mess. This is a wood palette bought from the works bookshop for 99p. They need coating in linseed oil but then I find they are pretty good for the job. As you can see I don't spend time organising my palette.

Doing this does have the advantage that you can see what colours look like next to other colours before hitting he canvas.

Pants

Yes pants, I don't ever clean my brushes when I start a painting until it is completely finished. I use this old pair of football boxers (they were washed !) to remove any excess paint from the brush. You will find you get some colour mixing happening in the brush, but I kind of like this.

The Scaffolding

The first thing I ever do is just mix up some very thin burnt siena and wash over the whole canvas, even introducing a few drips here and there. So I can paint immediately I wipe of the turps with a cloth, leaving a stained canvas.

I then mix up some more burnt sienna with burnt umbra and paint the dark bits and shadows of the face. I work from a black and white photo at this stage as colour is not important.

This will take about a day to dry, it needs to be fully dry before you start the next stage.

The Mid tones

The next step is to mix up some mid tones. Generally the skin tone is red, yellow ochre, orange and white. I just experiment with various amounts to get different tones. Some mixing is done on the canvas. I also add a hint of blue and viridian for the shadowy skin areas.

The t shirt is a light colour, I find it really difficult to paint straight in light colours. I usually paint a base of a dark colour, in this case a thin mix of blue with burnt umbra.

The Mid tones

The next step is to paint the highlights, the mixture for the skin was much the same but now with more white. As the dark paint had been laid down this gives the highlights a good base on white to shine out.

I try to work with larger brush strokes at this stage and be as brave and bold with the colour as I possibly can. Remember with oils they are very opaque so any mistakes can be corrected. Just let it dry and paint straight over.

The Final Touches

The last sep is to just step back and have a good look at the picture. The last stage I was fairly pleased with, the only problem is that Gordon still looked rather grumpy. There was something fundamentally wrong with the shape of the left side of his mouth.

I just raised the left side slightly and now it looks much more like the original picture.

I also at this stage rubbed on a few flecks of viridian into the orange background. These are complementary colours and work to set each colour off.