Thursday, June 30, 2011

Two Portraits of Marilyn Thompson

Marilyn Thompson #1, 2011


Marilyn Thompson #2, 2011

Marilyn Thompson is a dearly loved Wagga Wagga artist who I discovered accidentally had been greatly influenced by Arthur under his tutelage at Charles Sturt Uni back in the day.  Apparently Arthur's printmaking processes profoundly shaped Marilyn's artmaking process subsequently, so I asked if she would sit for me to do a painting of her before she heads off (she's moving away from Wagga Wagga to live with her family). 

Although she believes Arthur might not recognise her if they passed on the street, I couldn't help but think that Marilyn reflected a side of Arthur that probably wouldn't have been represented without her in the exhibit.  I did these two portraits in the hour sitting (painted in the order shown above).  

As will happen with the rest of the portrait miniatures for the project they will be rescaled and made into portrait miniatures 5x4cm.  Currently Marilyn and Errol are the only two portrait miniatures I've begun.  I have one more person scheduled and several more to locate.



Here is some of the process work of Errol's portrait turning into a miniature on layered acetate.  You can see a number of ghoulish figures and these are all Errol.  Each part of the face is layered on one of four pieces of acetate which divides the three-dimensional information of his head in an attempt to create a likeness with what is actually very basic shapes.  In this way each layer looks kind of creepy in a similar way as if you looked at the different layers of a person's face in real life, only in this case no blood and brains.  I'm making ten because I'm expecting most of them to look nothing like Errol.  I'll pick the best one for showing.  I'm doing the same with Marilyn too.

No comments: