Archibald entrant

At the same time as I am doing the thailand portrait below I am also working on an entry to the Archibald with this distingished Australian physicist. I have tried to capture the very different qualities of the man in each of the drawings. he is an excellent sitter so no need for photographs, except perhaps for the final stages of the painting.

The plan is to put him up on a 1 metre by one and a half metre canvas that will convey the range of this man's personality and abilities. I will add developments in this one as they happen in the lead up to next year's or the year after's competition.





It's clear from the two color pencil drawings that this is a man with two dominant aspects - strong analytical and clearly announced yet, behind that a sense of tenderness, retreat, of keeping himself back, of kindness.

The two ink and pen drawings bring another colouration to those aspects - one pointed with those exquisite beak-like Gallic features in nose, lips, jaw and hands. Yet he is all tangled up like a frightenned mess in the second one. For sure as I develop the figure in paint it will loose some of this raw honesty and become a bit pretty. I notice thatsome other painters lose that freshness as the work develops from early drawings/sketches up to the final brush stroke.

The excitement of surfing the moment when its time to leave it alone, is part of working in this medium - will I bugger it up by working it any more. The maxim of one of my teachers is 'for god's sake don't ever finish a painting'.