Expanding on the idea of painting people with a representation somewhere in the image of their illnesses, as in the head and shoulders of the model who had the back operations…:
“Lost”
This little old lady had been sketched by myself several months ago and I felt she exemplified dementia.
I wanted to make it appear as though she was lost, alone with little recollection of her past and hence without the warmth (which is expressed by the lack of colour in the image) that memories and friends and family give a person.
She certainly looks sad and alone, lost in a mist with the shadows of people or buildings behind her. I am unsure however if I have seen this image somewhere before??
I continue to experiment with different canvases and she was painted on a blue fabric which was sized and primed and then stretched.
LIVING
this image was taken from a photograph.
The gentleman is not a relative but has been unwell, my aim was to produce a mood with colour and shape to represent his illnesses as well as his brave smile through it all.
I don’t like the painting because of the posed expression for the camera, the colours fluctuate around greens and greys and hence have a sickly feel of his illness –and his smile is bravery in the face of illness.
It is not an image I like because the face is contrived and is neither freely expressed nor composed beyond its reproduction from the photograph..
playing with creativity 