Portrait in progress: Emily on the tube

Em on the tube - work in progress
Em on the tube (in progress), oil on canvas, 70 x 50 cm.

For this portrait I’m working from a photo I snapped with my iphone while riding the tube in London with my friend Emily. The florescent lighting of the subway car combined with the flash from the iphone created a slightly eerie, strangely-colored image that I really wanted to play with. Plus the sassy one-eyebrow-raised look that Em was giving me was too good to pass up.

I’ve been working on this portrait in a combination of oil paints and oil sticks. I hadn’t worked with oil sticks (basically oil paint in stick form, so you can draw with it) in a long time, but I saw a set of Winsor & Newton oilbars on sale in an art shop in London, and Em talked me into getting them. It seems fitting that she gets to be my first subject, doesn’t it?

10 thoughts on “Portrait in progress: Emily on the tube”

  1. i’m so glad i talked you into those oilbars! i especially like your version of the tube and your extra striking details on the scarf. both are sassier than the eyebrow raise i was trying for. which of course has nothing on your well honed eyebrow raise.

    Reply
  2. I’m so tempted to make the scarf red, but that would lead into eerie Julimily territory, and we already have enough images of her. Or do we?

    Reply
  3. There is some serious energy in this piece. It is jumping off the page. It will be great to see the final piece.

    Isn’t it fun to play with media that we haven’t used for a while or are new too? I think it adds energy to the work.

    Nutty
    (hanging around to see the final piece)

    Reply
  4. Thanks, all! I’m so excited by all the positive feedback I’ve heard on this one. Really looking forward to sharing the final piece soon.

    Reply

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