Portrait and Workshop, 1 June 2007 -
Still Life, 24 April 2009 - Portrait, 3
July 2009
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| It was good to see Keith again so soon. Much of the
evening reinforced what he had said in earlier demo's so I won't repeat unless
it strikes me as particularly worth repetition. You'll just have to read all
three write-ups. June was persuaded to sit for us. I was surprised by the long time Keith took to get her head, and the light, precisely positioned. He obviously knew exactly what shadows he needed. He had previously stretched some acrylic paper and slapped on some watered-down Burnt Umber. He seemed to have changed from his original preference for a greenish background for portraits. However, at the end he said that if he were turning it from a demo sketch into a more formal portrait he would paint in a greener background at the end to complement the tones of the face. Out came his old round "Rosemary" brush and the little pot of crimson. |
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A couple of tiny horizontal touches
with the side of the brush, about a hand spread apart, defined the top and
bottom of the head ("I find that's about the height of head I'm most
comfortable with"). Then a third one where the face ended and the top of the
head started (visible because he was looking from above). The last mark before really serious measuring started was half way up the face, for the eyes. As always, Keith's measuring was meticulous and the new marks tentative, particularly angles: the angle of the line of eyes; the centre of the face (one touch) and then, going across from left to right, the relative spaces between cheek (check resulting angles), eye, centre of nose, tear duct and end of eye. All with the side of the brush. Then the nose length (shorter than you think), the angle of the nostrils and finally the line of the mouth. One eye shut, one eye almost shut, feet in exactly the same place. Check positions, check angles, check a different way, correct the odd 1 mm error. "The less you see the better you paint." I'm not sure whom he was quoting when he told us that a portrait is like a photograph with the mouth not quite right. |
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The far side of the head (hair) needed
repeated measurement and comparison with the height of the head and face - the
head is always wider than you think. By the time the little touches of crimson
had closed the gaps and introduced the shirt, he found that the chin was a good
With his thinned crimson and a wider brush (3/8" flat?) he started to mark areas of tone/shadow. Still often just tiny marks, like the underside of the nose. Only then did colour, flesh first, start to come in - broad dabs now, instead of touches with the side of the brush. Flesh needs all three primaries and white |
| Actually he uses two sets of
primaries: warm ones (Ultramarine Blue; Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow) in the
light and cool ones (Prussian Blue; Alizarin Crimson; Lemon Yellow) in the
shadow. Sometimes the colour of the surface requires the 'wrong' set to be
used: for example the shaded lipstick was bright enough to need the warmer
red. Acrylic dried very quickly this warm evening and so Keith was able to mix exactly the colour he wanted and apply it over a previous coat without risk of picking up the previous shade. To get the colour right he makes frequent mental reference to the colour wheel to correct colours that were not quite as he wanted them.  To make sure that the painting is not too photographic he likes to move his brush across lines in the original (hair, say) as well as in the expected direction. He gave the result to June, who agreed with all of us that the likeness was very good. A formal portrait would take a week or two but when you looked at his sample portfolio you could see how much more work went into such paintings. His enthusiasm keeps bubbling through: "Why didn't I think of that before?", "I've not tried it like this, but it really seems to work", "I'm putting features in first now, instead of the outline of the head". As always it was a great evening. |
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Portrait and Workshop, 1 June 2007 -
Still Life, 24 April 2009 - Portrait, 3
July 2009
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Acrylic Still Life, 24 April 2009
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Keith's early career was in commercial design but when a company he
was working for went into liquidation he decided to make painting his
future. He gave quite some care to the lighting and composition of this still life. A silver trophy and glass give interesting reflections and distortions. The apple gives colour. The black and white background and the apple were arranged so that edges were visible through the glass, making the refraction satisfy the eye that that is what it really was. Also, the big 'arrow' of black paper on the right pulls the eye into the picture. It is balanced by placing the trophy quite close to the left edge. A small light, close to the arrangement, adds sparkle. |
| Contrary to his usual choice of heavy cartridge paper,
Keith was working on tightly stretched acrylic paper (a present from Daler
Rowney). He had prepared this by roughly covering it with a warm brown mid-tone
background. His palette of Cryla acrylic was one he uses for all his work:  three warm
primaries (cadmium yellow, cadmium red and ultramarine blue) and three cool primaries
(lemon yellow, crimson and prussian blue). The warm set is mostly for well-lit areas and the cool set for shadows. Then came the drawing: watery crimson acrylic applied with a small (No.8?) round brush. The colour is not that important for still life but it is what he uses most of the time. |
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Everything was carefully measured by eye, marking the result of
each measurement with a small dab with the side of the brush. Having touched in the top and bottom of the trophy, Keith established that the radius of the top rim was 1/5 of the height. All other measurements were then based on this. He measured verticals and horizontals and, most importantly, carried angles across by lining up the brush and moving it across to the painting. He finds curves so difficult that he builds them up from numerous short dabs at the appropriate angle. Once the basic drawing was done, Keith started to establish the darker-toned areas, using the same watery crimson, but with a bigger (1/2 inch?) flat brush. |
| Then began the application of more realistic colours. He wanted to
keep everything fairly dark and grey at first (limited hue) so that when he put
in the highlights at the end they would really "zing". In fact all the colours
at this stage were modified greys. Keith's use of acrylic is fundamentally different from any watercolour technique. His college tutor advised him that one should 'mix the colour you want, with a creamy texture, and dab it on'. This means that the paint is going on thick enough to cover the colour underneath (although gaps will still allow it to show through). |
 Sorry about the blurry photo (Sam Dauncey) |
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He could offer no 'technique' for painting silver. The way is just
to paint what you see and this he did, with myriad little dabs of
colour. Careful examination of small areas out of their context gives surprising results. For example the 'black' behind the trophy is actually a dark khaki (because of the close-up lighting) and this same colour appears reflected in the glass and the trophy. Even the white is pretty dark (reassuring, to give scope for contrasting lighter lights). Nearly everything was dabbed in with the 1/2" flat, deliberately aiming to make the marks visible (not trying to indicate linear perspective). |
| It was then noted that the shadowed ceiling was reflected in the
foot and inside of the trophy and in the glass: so we need the cool set of
primaries. Then back to a smaller round brush for lighter touches and some snippets of advice: "If you make a nice mark, don't go back and reinforce it."
"If you don't
like something, it is more often a question of tone than drawing or
colour." "To
lighten, add a touch of yellow to the white" "Remember, acrylic dries
darker (not like watercolour)" |
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| Running out of time (there was more to
be done, especially perhaps in the background), the glints were finally touched
in with pure white. The effect of these final glints is remarkable, as you can see from the photo taken at the end of the demonstration, below, only a few moments after the previous one. I've repeated the photo of the arrangement to remind you how much more life there can be in a painting than in its inspiration.. |
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Portrait and Workshop, 1 June 2007 -
Still Life, 24 April 2009 - Portrait, 3
July 2009
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Acrylic Portrait and Workshop, 1 June 2007
A rough greenish background (good complement for skin colours) had already been painted over his stretched, heavy cartridge paper. Keith started with a tiny spot for the centre of Jean's chin, just left of dead centre and worked from there. Don't worry about covering the whole sheet of paper. Keith used only three brushes: a round (No.8?), a flat (3/8"?) and a filbert (No.8?). His stay-wet palette was home-made, with baking parchment and an absorbent membrane (although the crimson used for drawing was wetter, in a separate pot). Accuracy is essential if you want a likeness. It is virtually impossible to draw curves accurately by eye so Keith draws only short straight marks, with the side of the round brush, checking the angle carefully before each one. Look out of only one eye. |
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He checked dimensions frequently, measuring with the brush a recognisable distance that was the same as the required one and then doing the same on the paper. A cross established the centre of the face and the line of the eyes. Eyes may always be half way up the skull, but eyebrows and lips do vary and contribute much to the likeness. Noses are shorter than you think (cross-check angles and dimensions and start with just tiny marks for nostrils). Beware of smiles: they usually mean that the portrait was done from a photo. Once the drawing was finished, shadows were started, mostly with the flat brush but with the filbert, too, for smaller areas. He uses 7 or 8 colours: white; an RGB set of warm ones, e.g. cadmium, to create a warm "soup" for bright areas; a similar set of cool ones for the shadow "soup". Throughout the rest of the demo Keith continued to check angles and directions carefully and to apply paint with very quick short "creamy dabs". The chin line and one or two other doubtful areas were adjusted by extending the background slightly into the originally drawn lines. |
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A "real" portrait takes much longer than a demo. For example, in this case he would quite possibly have decided to glaze over the whole picture with a thin crimson wash and then go back in to correct the details and highlights. |  |
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| During Keith's "Saturday Workshop", the following day, members painted from their own photographs. Thanks to Helen Davies, right, for these snaps (although I'm sorry not to be able to show you the photo that prompted her portrait). |  |
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| As well as leaving his basic Portrait guidance notes Keith afterwards sent the following more formal notes to remind participants:   |
| The demonstration was sponsored by
Rosemary Brushes who donated a set
as a raffle prize ("as good as any but half the price", Keith said). Keith also runs residential workshops. For information visit http://www.saa.co.uk/art/keithmorton or phone him (0208 886 3149) for more details |
Portrait and Workshop, 1 June 2007 -
Still Life, 24 April 2009 - Portrait, 3
July 2009
Back to History Page
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