the portrait
these few days its been ndp rehearsals at marina bay floating platform. driving the buggy to bring the mediacorp hosts in. quite thankful for dat role really. its relaxing compared to stores n logistics stuff dat other people do.
march past.
these past 2 months have been rather productive from an artistic perspective. i’ve shifted my focus to portraits. n i feel its going to be a preoccupation for now. everytime i’m in town i realize i become more observant of people. “oh this guy wd make a real original sketch!” n i’ve hit an idea to take the green line from one end n back just to sketch the colourful commuters who use it.
portraits of people lost in thought, faces of working adults taking a breather from work. as they withdraw into their shells, their world. the mrt is a fascinating place to sketch people. sketches of bunk life will soon turn to civilians going about their daily routine. my experience with drawing my bunk mates have made me look out for the challenges in live drawing.
first, there’s the difficulty of getting ur sitter to keep still. so u have to be really precise in getting the bugger’s attitude n character down with real speed. it has to look spontaneous n natural, in my eyes.
next, come the artist’s greatest nightmare; the likeness. in essence, capturing the “differentness” and the specific personality of a person. the painter’s skill and sensitivity in being able to capture these elements are what make a portrait successful. portrait drawing is the most challenging art form i’ve ever come across. to me its my last and biggest obstacle. hopefully.
its an interesting phenomenon that every person on our planet has two eyes, one nose and mouth, yet each of us looks completely different from everyone else. thats the uniqueness the poor portrait painter must catch. that uniqueness makes every face a challenge. with every face, the artist starts from scratch. so i guess, it all boils down to alot of experience n practice, practice, practice.
wad i’ve done is to make it a point to complete a painted portrait every weekend. my interest in the cold war in jc days, has inspired my to do a series on prominent leaders during dat period. just finished mao, stalin, khrushchev and brezhnev. though i think the series will perhaps be more complete with a gorbachev. i feel like moving on to painting other “kinds” of people.
right now i’ve plans to do a solo exhibition after my ord, featuring several new paintings i’m going to do after ns, but also including my earlier work; the six on sji.
til next time...
alvin ong dozed and watched the sawdust trampled night @ 11:32 AM
