Painting the Queen

Well I’m going to start painting at college having so far only worked at home due to practicalities.  I am going to be working on a largish canvas (I can’t actually remember the size I asked for,…..dip stick that I am), as I wanted to do what I can’t do at home ie, work big, and in contrast to my other work I’m going to attempt to work loosely,  (a new challenge).   I want to try working spontaneously and painterly, although having to work from photos again I suppose I shall have to forego the spontaneous life bit for now.  I had initially envisaged a large head, a face, a vibrant portrait.  I wasn’t sure who I was going to paint though.  Well I have always wanted to paint my mother but trying to get a decent photo in the past has been met with refusal and her going stiff at the sight of the camera resulting in a rabbit caught in headlights fear look, (not really the look I had envisaged).   Well anyway, as luck would have it the M & D required a lift, so brilliant ammunition I thought to strike a deal.  I do the lift and they have to allow me to take lots of camera shots (in the hope it would result in something not so fear stricken).  The lighting was not ideal and I was zooming in so as to be less conspicuous while I clicked away during conversation.  I’m sure I could have got something better but that would have required cooperation instead of self-conscious uncomfortable resistance.  Well at the same time I was thinking that this painting was actually quite daunting, a bit like painting the queen.  I mean in terms of my family she is the queen!, the ultimate portrait although now a change of plan.  No longer just a large head, as that wouldn’t be right with the subject matter, after all this was the queen. I googled images of the Windsor version sitting down and coincidentally found some very similar poses to those of dear mama.  Where the queen has robes and all that palaver draped over her, mummit has her blanket, where the queen has her heavy jewels around her neck mummit has her thick scarf, the queen sits on her throne, mummit sits on her high backed orthopaedic one, and the similarities go on in an unsimilar way.

So now it seems somewhat of a challenge to somehow portray a ‘feel’ of my mum.  This seems even a bigger challenge as I consider this is not just about someone’s character but there is a whole gamut of personal emotional ‘stuff’.  I know recently my thoughts have been looking to create something not so solid or even ethereal and transient in other areas of my art but there is nothing ethereal about my mum.  No……, earthy, solid, stable, unmoving are much more apt words.  So anyway, I know what colours she is.   She is reds and reddy browns and so colour is what I have been playing around with.  These are some colour tests I did in my sketch book.   The first was with very warm colours that I associate with the subject but thought maybe this was perhaps overkill so tried the idea of a green underpainting to contrast the warm feel.  That really didn’t work.  So how do I find a way to transfer so many feelings into paint?, ……..To be continued.