Playing with Portraits!

How are you bearing up in the heatwave? I decided it was time to skulk in my studio and catch up on some portrait practice. Don’t get me wrong here, I am no portrait artist and never will be but I like a challenge, the Tudors are one of my historical crushes, so what better way to get some practice, than to have a look at the portraits of Henry VIII and his six wives. What actually kicked this off was insomnia but more about that when this sketchbook page is finished. 

If you’re looking for a portrait master, the Tudors had one of the best ….. Hans Holbein the younger, his portraits are masterful works, colour, texture, symbolism, you name it, Holbein can do it! Check out his ''The Ambassadors'', showcasing his unbelievable talent with an anamorphic skull in the foreground! 

I've been very fortunate to see a lot of his works in London, Paris and Vienna and although I love these rich paintings, it’s his sketches that I love most. With a couple of strokes of charcoal and pastel he manages to capture character and fashion in an amazing way. 

Looking for portraits of my favourite historical character, Anne Boleyn is tricky because those that we know aren’t contemporary, Henry obviously tried to delete her from memory, all we have done in her lifetime is a coin (the moost Happi is written on it and yes spelled like that), unfortunately her nose is damaged on this coin and two sketches done by Holbein on which someone has written Anne Boleyn, this is one of them. Tudor portraits are always tricky to identify, and the experts are always changing their minds, to be honest the women also look very similar too. I chose this sketch because I think the second where Anne is pictured with a double chin and wearing her  ''Biggin'' (a cap) isn’t her. I seriously don’t believe that a woman as fastidious and imperious as Anne was, would let herself be represented like that. So, who knows if this is her but I like to think so.

The portrait of Catherine is one I saw in the KHM in Vienna, although it too is the subject of debate, the halo like hood  I find interesting because it gives her (whoever) that Madonna like air, a bit like Catherine is presented in the whole Tudor drama.

The object of this was to take a look at how eyes, mouths and noses are dealt with in portraits, and I immediately saw my biggest mistakes. I start mouths by drawing a complete line around them, in fact lips and mouths are a play of line and shading, often the lines that you leave out are the best ones, and a putty rubber helps to take out shading and add highlights when you've been too heavy handed. In my sketches, I've enjoyed playing with this new discovery but still I'm no portrait artist. One little ironic touch, the coloured pencil that I'm using is a colour called Caput Mortem, dead head red, also known as mummy brown! Considering Anne Boleyn’s fate, dead head red is quite appropriate and yes, mummy brown was made from a powder ground from Egyptian mummies, not only was it used as a pigment (Eugene Delacroix was a big fan). it was also taken internally, yep! Eaten as medicine, yuck.