Lockdown artist Martin Davey self portrait - WIP stages

3 stages of the self portrait WIP

During 2020 I decided to paint my own self portrait. It is in oils on mounting board, sized at 33” x 23”, or A1. This was my first tackle subject wise at such a project bus as I did not have any other subject it seemed like a good idea. Also the picture could be a good item for an upcoming exhibition.

The picture above shows three stages of the artwork in creation. In the first panel can be seen the initial drawing, done in dark brown acrylic paint. This is done on a wash or 'ground' of lighter brown paint. White acrylic paint has been added to indicate areas of a lighter tone. Once this is done then work can begin on the proper oil painting, as seen in the second panel. Here diluted oil paint has been used to paint over the acrylic layer so as to give an indication of colour and tonal qualities. Not much detail is paid to detail at this time and this layer acts as an underpainting. It will be in turn painted over with heavier brushwork but so of this layer will still show through the paint to the final image. In the last panel can be seen the final painting. Here the paint has been applied thickly and detail painted in. The colours are also more carefully mixed to get to the correct desired opaque colour. There was one other stage done on this layer and that is a glazing paint layer. It is where a small quantity of paint is diluted in a heavy transparent oil, thicker than normal paint oil and painted on top of the normal, previously painted layer. It is similar to coloured stain glass in a way and adds a little extra to the colour, like a layered colour where the light goes through the transparent layer, hits the opaque surface and bounces back through the top layer giving a richer experience to the viewer. Sadly this effect cannot really be captured by a camera so just three stages are shown here..

The self portrait can be viewed in greater detail on this link.