Lightfoot's Hackney Project

Last night I changed the basic composition of the picture again.

At first, I found myself needing to take it back to how it had been initially. Sometimes, that’s the way it goes. This move was an improvement, but something was still needed. At first I was completely stumped, and annoyed that it didn’t seem to be working! Then I suddenly realised that I had to let go of my attachment to the initial sketches I was making use of if that was what was necessary; the hand on the hip of the figure on the far right, which I had found such a nice shape in the original sketch, was not serving the painting as a whole; so I changed the position of the arm and then suddenly the eye could flow around the picture far more easily. The eye had been sort of getting stuck on that elbow, I felt. I wanted the compositional flow to begin first from the figure at the left (which is how we are all of course programmed to read, in the West at least) and then across and then to circle back into what I think is perhaps the final focal point of interest; the girl in the middle of the picture, who is looking out at the viewer. Hopefully in this way, although it is not immediately apparent, the viewer comes to feel that they are implicated in the scene; they too, are part of the picture…

I had over the weekend got my housemate to take a photograph of me with the appropriate lighting arrangement for the figure on the left. Although I basically decided to use myself so as to not have the hassle of finding someone else willing to pose for this figure, I also thought it would be interesting for the painting to begin, when viewed, as something of a self-portrait perhaps (When this picture is exhibited I shall try to ensure that I also exhibit a more obvious self portrait- such as the one I first posted on this blog- so that the viewer will notice that it is perhaps the same person in this picture, and will then infer that this painting is relating an experience that I had, which is more or less the case: I am actually bringing figures seen and sketched during two separate evenings together, but I don’t think anyone would mind that…) Last night I soon realised that I needed to darken the tones around my head, and also generally on the left hand side of the picture, so as to give more focus on the other figures. I suddenly remembered- a recent trip to the National Gallery fresh in my mind- how Rembrandt and also Daumier would manipulate the shadows in their pictures; how they would throw large areas of their pictures into darkness to give greater focus- and hopefully also poignancy- to the areas in the light…

So there it is, the story so far. I am also here including the initial sketches I am working from for you to see. They are not examples of my best sketching abilities, but rather what my sketches look like when I am trying to draw someone who is not entirely still in a pub, on a tiny page of one of the tiny pocket-sized sketchbooks I always try to have on me, and without them noticing too! If you click on the sketchbook pictures then you can see them on your screen at about the size of the real things.

I have a couple of other pictures on the go too, in various stages of completion. The project is up and running now. I don’t think I have time to write about the progress of the other pictures as I am writing about this one, but I am hopefully before long I shall be able to post some more finished pictures up here…