Evelyn Oldroyd Painting: 2016

Victorian Faces 6

Victorian Faces 6
oil on acrylic ground on paper
5x5", 12.7x12.7cm

Painted using Ivory Black, Titanium White and Gamblin's Torrit Grey. The paint company Gamblin makes this oil paint from recycled pigments collected from their air filtration systems. Each batch is a different grey depending on what has been produced since the last cleaning! It is named Torrit grey after the air filtration system.

Victorian Faces 5

Victorian Faces 5
oil on acrylic ground on paper
5x5", 12.7x12.7cm

I woke at 3am and not able to get back to sleep got up and painted this face. It was one of those that seemed to paint itself. One of my favourite of the Victorian Faces.

Victorian Faces 4

Victorian Faces 4
oil on acrylic ground on paper
5x5", 12.7x12.7cm

Quince with Ginger Jar

Quince with Ginger Jar
oil on linen on ply
6x3.75", 15.3x9.5 cm

This last summer I prepared some linen panels with a traditional gesso ground. The Gamblin gesso I used is mixture of rabbit skin glue, gypsum, marble dust, and titanium dioxide. The glue and gesso come dry and are mixed with water and sit overnight to be ready for use. One prepares the panels by first coating with rabbit skin glue The linen is glued down with rabbit skin glue and when dry 4 coats of gesso are applied. With the hot dry summer the gesso dried very quickly.

I loved using this ground instead of the acrylic ground I have been using. The paint moved over the surface in a very different way and the paint dried more quickly than on the acrylic ground. I know I will be using traditional gesso more often, but have lots of the acrylic gesso to get through first.

Victorian Face 3

Victorian Face 3
5x5", 12.7x12.7cm
oil on acrylic ground on paper

Victorian Faces 2

This is the 3rd face I painted, the 2nd just didn't work and will be tried again. For this one I tried a Matisse style of outlines, simplfied forms and colour with a Zorn palette of Red, Ochre, Black and White. Fun to do and this face lent itself to the method.

Victorian Face 2
5x5", 12.7x12.7cm
oil on acrylic ground on paper

Victorian Faces 1

I have been playing with painting faces. A few years ago I tried a couple of family members from photos and found that fairly difficult. The painting became too tight as I tried too hard to get a likeness. I enjoy the looser painting styles showing brushstrokes - difficult to achieve.
I enjoyed painting portraits a lot and felt I needed lots of practise so decided to try again using old photos from the internet. The women I have started with are from Victorian age black and white photographs. The photographs are very bright showing little in the way of facial form so I have to use my imagination somewhat.
I have used ivory black and white, others I have attempted to add colour and others one other colour such as yellow ochre, Vandyke brown, burnt umber, various Torrit Greys, etc. I love how one small brushstroke can change an expression. I decided to use a consistent 5x5"format for now.
This was the first one I tried, but the last finished as it is my third attempt at this one.