Managed to photograph this 12" by 14" oil at last - had to take it with the flash in the end, hence there's some glare.
Cremnitz White, Cobalt Blue, Mars Orange, Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow - plus a bit of Ultramarine, I think.
EIGHTEEN inches by fourteen, you'd have thought the scale of it would have told me if my ability to read the notes on the back of the board hadn't.......
This, I emphasize, is a sketch - rapidly done in oil, when I was preparing to paint an acrylic version of Mr Corbyn.
I would have hugely preferred to paint him from life - painting portraits from photographs is a mug's game which is almost impossible to get right. But this was technically interesting to me, in that I used Cremnitz White, a lead carbonate which made a massive difference in being able to mould the shapes of (sorry Jezza!) ageing flesh.
I'll show the acrylic portrait eventually, but I feel now that I ought to repeat the bigger portrait in oil - again with lead white, because Titanium (a very useful, opaque, clean white though it is) just doesn't hold a candle to lead white in painting flesh tones.
The latest acrylic - which I put on the Facebook page with the wrong dimensions, and can't see how to correct it in the boosted post.
But - it's 16" by 12". And available for sale, as is some of the previous work shown on this blog-page. Do not hesitate to inquire ... I shall respond with indecent haste.
So much time lost in the service of my voluntary job - so little energy available to supplement it.
Really - why spend time on non-arty things? I just can't keep up with it - I'm too bleedin' old!
Most of my arty stuff will be displayed on Facebook for the time being - Robert Jones, Isle of Wight Landscapes. Not all of the landscapes ARE Isle of Wight, but most of them will be.
I'm sorry not to have kept my various pages up to date, but - that's depression for you. It's just horrible - never let anyone tell you different!
Portraits, already!
I very, very rarely paint portraits, but have been asked to paint one of Jeremy Corbyn, ex-leader of the Labour Party and currently suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party as a result of seeming to forget he owed a touch of loyalty to the new leader.
So I have mixed feelings about the lad, but nonetheless - we're having a go.
I work agonizingly slowly, especially on a portrait, but here is the initial lay-in. The challenge here, apart from the obviously wrong shape of the nose, is to avoid making him look as though he's just celebrated his 110th birthday.
My mum, pictured here, looked forward to my 70th birthday, bud didn't make it by 4 months, dying at 94. She said she couldn't believe I was nearly 70. And I can't believe she's gone. I shall miss you forever, Nellie Dean - known as 'Dean' for most of her life. I can't believe you've left us, and I'll never believe you have.
And I am 70 now - Dean would have been 95 this week.
