Who’s Ready for Portrait Artist of The Year?
Hint: it’s not me
For his 40th birthday, my partner asked me to paint his portrait.
A year later, I made a start on it.
Two years later, I’m happy to report that it’s finished! 😅
I think the idea came to him when we were watching Portrait Artist of the Year, where the contestants must paint a live sitter over a period of four hours. I warned him it would take a while before I would start it (I know myself), but I’m not sure he expected to wait that long to finally get his gift.
Of course, choosing acrylic paint when I’d done only one painting in that medium before—and of a sea urchin, not even a person—probably wasn’t my best idea? After about three hours I had a similar reaction to James Acaster’s on The Great British Bake Off.
Acaster is a comedian, so his meltdown was funny. Mine wasn’t so fun. There’s actual footage of it because I was recording to show the process, but no-one is ever seeing that. Ever.
After the meltdown I stopped recording the process… Mostly because I couldn’t be bothered setting up the tripod and camera at every painting session, I swear.
This is what the painting looked like in May 2023:
Then, unsatisfied, I stopped for pretty much a year. In the meantime though I did a few gouache paintings. Although the medium is very different from acrylic, I think just the act of practising painting helped me pick up some skills to help with the portrait.
When I started again I took a good look at what I’d done… then painted over it. This was not a moment of reappraising past work for the best. I thought it was better to start from scratch, more or less.
I didn’t paint from life the second time around. I used the reference photo for hair and clothes I had taken the year before. Maybe removing the pressure to go quickly so my partner wouldn’t be bored helped too!
I still had to learn how to use acrylics properly, but for some reason it just clicked. I suddenly was able to gauge the right amount of drying retarder to add in, how to blend better, and how to play with the opacity of the paint. Maybe someone who’s been taught acrylic painting professionally would be shocked to watch me work, but the improvised technique did the job.
A friend told me that our brains keep learning when we pause for a little while. I found that to be true when learning English, so it makes sense it would be the same with other skills. A quick internet search provided the following, which seems to agree with my friend and me:
After learning new information, our brains continue to work, using pauses as a fertile ground for processing, organizing and integrating the learned information.
The article does specify short breaks though, so maybe a year is a bit much to qualify.
So far this has been my only ‘big’ project in 2024. I’m still exploring a lot and having fun. I’m getting the itch to start another longer project though, so time will tell if I can commit to it or not!
Judith xx
P.S. I’m celebrating three years of writing this newsletter! 🎉 You might (or not) have noticed that I didn’t write one last month. That’s because I was going on holiday and just lacked the time to write. I decided not to put pressure on myself to get something out, and that was a big thing for me. I don’t like failing at my commitments and I can be hard on myself when I do. But I thought a) practically no one will notice and b) I’m not getting paid for it! 😅 In the end I’m glad I chose my mental wellbeing; I don’t prioritise it often enough.
Monthly inspiration
I was about 13 years old when I learned from a teacher that my name was in the bible, and that my namesake beheaded some guy named Holofernes. Kind of badass, isn’t it?
Holofernes was an Assyrian general sent by Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Judith’s home, the city of Bethulia. Judith said to herself “over my dead body.” Or rather, his. She proceeded to seduce Holofernes—because she was hot on top of being fearless—and was able to enter his tent. There, the guy was passed out drunk so our heroine took the opportunity to decapitate him. Judith and her female servant then whisked the head away in a basket. Bish bash bosh.
Although I liked the story, I didn’t start caring about Judith’s representation until I read about Artemisia Gentileschi and saw her painting of the scene. It was in the book The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel, which you might recall from when I mentioned it as a monthly inspiration.
There have been MANY depictions of the scene throughout history. I encourage you to have a look at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry about it, as there are too many cool ones to mention here. I’ll just highlight a few which especially struck me.
Judith is considered the symbol of liberty, virtue and victory of the weak over the strong in a just cause. Which is obviously what Moridja Kitenge Baza had in mind when he painted his representation of the tale. In his words:
“My daughter is Judith. She decapitates everything that the Congo has endured, everything that has been pillage. And her face is rubber, the first Belgian exploitation in Congo.”
Earlier this month I visited the RA Summer Exhibition, and I came across a painting of two blond Barbies. My first thought was that someone had been inspired by the movie. I was about to walk away when I noticed the head that one of the Barbies was carrying… Wait a minute. Two women, with a man’s head in a basket, could this be Judith and Holofernes? And it was!
Upon reading about the piece, I discovered that the artist was inspired by both the Barbie movie and byArtemisia Gentileschi’s art. 💗
You can follow my illustration and graphic design work here.