Portraiture

Moving on to something different for the project, I turned my attention to the portraits that would hang in the hallway of the house.

Each portrait shows a different person from a different time period. With pale white skin and haunting searching eyes.
There are three paintings, and one empty frame hanging. I shan't go into further detail.

A good friend of mine Natalie Todd (Who I would link you to but alas she doesn't appear to have an online presence as of yet) was kind enough to knock up some gentle pencil sketches for these portraits as I didn't feel my drawing skills are in no way up to creating what I actually want for the film.
I felt far more at ease knowing an actual illustration student was helping me than knowing I was relying on my own perhaps sub-par abilities. I am a sculpture primarily these days and it would only show in the drawings I would produce.

But anyway, here are the pencil tests she was so kind to provide for me as a clue as to what she had in mind.

(Above: Left, an Elizabethan gentleman bearing a slight resemblance to Peter Cushing. Right, a woman from the Regency period intended to have a hint of a resemblance of Elisabeth Sladen)

(Above: Left, a young Dickensian gentleman with a dash of Ben Whishaw in his face. Right, a woman from the 1940s with a delicate hue of Sophie Aldred in the face)

The people I suggested to Natalie as reference all have or had soulful, evocative eyes which is very important for these paintings. They must have a haunted unsettled feeling to them, and I feel that Natalie made me proud in these sketches.

The idea was for Natalie to produce said portraits in photoshop to mimic the feel of an actual painted portrait which I would then print out onto high quality printer paper then "paint" over it with PVA glue to give it a painty texture and a gloss as well.
Eventually time passed and Natalie had to reluctantly pull out of the project leaving me with an incomplete but terribly lovely digital painting of what to expect.
Her schedule was and is still hectic and so my project was only interfering with her own education. Something I could not willingly allow.

And so that was that.

Then I turned my hand to trying to make the portraits myself. I got less than five minutes into sketching what I wanted when I lost the will to live. But, more importantly, had a bravewave and suddenly realised the answer was staring my in the face all this time.

Why make three new portraits myself when I have three beautiful pencil test sketches from Natalie all ready to go?

So I printed the portraits off onto some lovely textured paper, cut them out and gently coloured them in with watercolour pencils, giving them a light wash of water to get the colours to run a little.
I then cut them out, along with a rectangular slip of acetate, four strips of angled wood and hay-presto, done.

Here is part of the process

I'm still tinkering with the frames but I am also aware that I don't want it to look perfect. I want it to feel slightly cobbled together not to mention old. I'm very pleased with how these turned out and am terribly thankful for what Natalie has done for me.

(I did, just to be clear, run this by Natalie who gave me her approval to use her work anyway, which I'm terribly grateful for)

More to come...