A quick summary of the painting I did during the Covid lockdown of 2021.
At the end of 2020, I applied to the ACE DYCP programme for funding to, among other things, engage a painting mentor. I didn’t get the funding but decided to go ahead with finding a mentor. The person I chose was Andrew North, a painter in Nottingham.
Andrew was a tremendous help to me in developing my painting. We worked together in various ways, initially with me documenting my work on a regular basis and then having a Skype session every few weeks and later with weekly Skype sessions as I was making more focused work. I won’t be talking about his feedback as that was between us but will simply show the work I did along with a few comments.
As with 2020, these images are from my Instagram feed (some with the captions attached).
I began with acrylics with sources ranging from my imagination, my own photographs and pictures from magazines (mainly fashion magazines which I got hooked on as a source from the textiles part of my Foundation):
I also took part in a 10 day / 10 image challenge, using it to make myself make some quick and weird pictures (all A5 using a variety of media):
I then switched to oil paintings, still on paper. First four portraits, all based on the same magazine photograph, but with completely different results. It does show, at least, that I do not rely too much on the original source, perhaps starting all of them the same way but diverging as changes happen and I respond to them. None of them is much like the model but there’s something in each of them that I like. I can see why Chantal Joffe likes working from magazine pictures.
I also did some large scale sketch work on A1 cartridge paper:
I then worked on a series of oil sketches on A4+ sized oil paper, based on the novel, ‘Revenge’, by Yoko Ogawa:
The last couple of these are unfinished. I started a new phase of my development as a painter with some larger scale paintings but will leave documenting these for the next project.
Tony Linde 