Sitting for the artist

An artist may give a length of time that he/she will want you to sit but, given the nature of the job, will end up wanting more. And then he may ask for even more.

Getting the work right can be very stressful for the artist, and however confident he was at the beginning about the time he would need you to sit for, the reality of his struggle with the canvas may be different.

This may not be a sign of inefficiency or bull from the artist. On the one hand some people are natural sitters and some are not. On the other hand some paintings do not come easy.

Some sitters sit excellently- they are still and understand how to make small corrections to their pose. I find that ballet dancers are excellent models- they understand their body space, they are used to physical duress, and are used to being given instructions for small physical moves. But that is unusual, and some people just dont enjoy it.

Some people just start looking miserable, and so you start to talk to them, and then they don't sit still.

Sometimes I pose the subject, start working and as they relax they will shift the angle of their head to their place of relaxation. This may mean that I have to start again as they are not self-aware enough of the difference.

I watched the great painter Nelson Shanks paint a two hour public demo of the famous italian singer Andrea Bocelli. Bocelli sat down and his head started a constant and ceaseless bobbling up, down, side to side. His hands would be still and then jerk to a new position. Bccellis blindness meant that he had no spacial awareness. Shanks said afterwards that he nearly gave in but with his normal persistence and skill finished a remarkable likeness which was then given to the city of Sarzana

I think that whether someone is being paid to sit or paying to sit it is still imperative that everyone enjoys themselves. There is no point creating avoidable suffering for art.

A professional model will normally expect breaks every 15 to 20 minutes and will work up to an 8 hour day. I usually start by asking a commission subject to sit for two hours in one day (given they can come back easily on another day) unless I am confident that they are happy to sit for longer.

I tell the subject that they must not suffer and to take breaks whenever they need, and that I will probably get carried away and will forget the timed breaks, but to remember that if they are not comfortable then I am probably not as well, so they should call the break themselves.

Most of the time I can talk during a sitting. There are some times that I need the subject to be still- when I am doing the essential drawing, checking for errors, or concentrating on the mouth.

Sometime, if the sitter is struggling, I will put a movie onto the computer for the sitter to watch. Often this can give the sitter a blank expression but I find that good comedy can solve this. The old sitcom Friends is excellent, especially as the length of each show fits in well for breaks.

Style of painting

The paint finish or texture that is suitable for a woman s is almost always more polished that for a man. An artist who is excellent for men may not aways be so excellent when painting women.

I saw a big full length painting in a very grand home of a titled gentry in the UK. It was painted by a very well known and talented artist who specialised in portraits and who was also a good family friend of the sitter.

The application of paint on the face was too angular and harsh to do justice to this good looking wife. The artist was certainly best for males or the genre interior groups he had made is forte. Womens faces just were not flattered by his style.

I think the wife had ended up with a very big painting of herself that she did not care for very much but felt obliged to hang in the double height entrance way to their palatial home. Maybe there is a rule there about portrait commissioning- Dont ask a friend to do that full length painting of you...

Framing

Often an artist will leave the framing to the client. The quality of framing can make a great difference to the finished work. There are a lot of average framers and a few experts. The good frames may not cost much more than the average, but then they may also cost more than the painting itself.
In general there are the high street framers who buy ready finished mouldings that are simply cut and joined together. At the other end of the spectrum are the specialist manufacturers doing one off frames who know and understand the traditional techniques such as real gold leaf.

Often an upmarket gallery or framers will be sending out to one of the expensive NY makers such as Lowy or Heydenryk.

Heydenryk are about top of the expense tree but in my experience will make a huge effort to get a frame to the right place on time.

Some great framers:
UK
PR Elletson & Co Ltd, North Street, Pewsey, Wiltshire, SN9 5HE

USA
Expensive but excellent
Lowy http://www.lowyonline.com/
House of Heydenryk: http://www.heydenryk.com/

Less expensive and good
Carleton-Kirkegaard www.carletonkirkegaard.com
Stafford Frame Makers www.staffordframes.com

Are you commissioning a portrait or a piece of art?

A parent wanting to commission a portrait wants it to look like their child. They probably want as much face as possible so that it is unmistakable a painting of their child. This desire may work against getting an artistic piece of artwork. Often the most attractive painings do not have the face coming out of the paining but obscured in some way. Paintings that rate as a great painting will often be more about a feeling or a time and place rather than a person. It is difficult to hit both the portrait for the parent button as well as the great painting button: Not impossible just a lot more difficult. I will often do extra paintings or drawings for myself playing with compositions which are not enough about the individual to answer the main question but that I think are worthwhile for their own sake. The metaphor I like is that there is a main course/entree portrait that is the essential requirement for the successful fulfillment of the commission, but there is the opportunity to do a starter and a dessert as well. These are the more arty responses to the subject.


This painting (I think by Mike Mann) is a beautiful painting but would not have been every clients wish. But if the (theoretical - as I dont think this is a commission) client had demanded clear unobstructed faces they would have prevented this beautiful Sorrollaesque painting.






This painting by the great Jeremy Lipkin of his lovely wife again shows how not showing the whole face can give a far more beautiful effect than the obvious portrait pose.

Singles or groups? Head and shoulders, half length or full length?

Groups are difficult to do well. The default is the family around the sofa which is very difficult to lift above the boring. I encourage clients who want the whole family to check whether paintings of each of the subjects would not be better. When the children grow up they can all take theirs home.

If you are committed to a group one thing to try to avoid is all the faces looking out of the painting. It may be better even to have one face turned away or even obscured. One master of family groups is a British artist Howard Morgan. His groups always escape from the boring with figures creeping in from the sides of the paintings.

Painting a head is a challenge. If you want to include hands into the painting then they may take as long as the head to paint. A full length painting may not add much more effort if the artist is only adding a long dress, but bare flesh such as arms or feet will escalate the time the artist needs to get it right. These increases in time and effort will usually be relected in an increased price.

The more body that is put in the painting then the smaller the head will probably get. Beware putting a long body in a painting when what you are really interested in is the face unless you have a big wall for a big painting. But for some people the body is a big bit of their story, for instance a young dancer, so one may chose to let the face be a small element in the painting.

What size?

One of the first conversations that I have with a client is where is the painting likely to go. However inexperienced a client is with painting this is a good handle to start planning the painting. The clients home dictates size. A London or Manhattan home is likely to be a different scale to a South of France or Beverly Hills home. The placing of the painting may also dictate whether the painting will be a vertical or horizontal composition.

If a client does not have a good idea of what they want I suggest that they look through portrait sites to give them an idea.

What medium? Painting or drawing? Oil or pastel?

Drawings are easier for the artist as there is little or no colour to think about and so they are usually cheaper. Drawings often suit young children better than paintings.

Some clients think about pastel rather than oil. Pastel has been popular for children. I think the reason for this is that in the past some artists became very skilled at working from life from children. Using pastels makes some of the problems associated with this easier to manage. The artist would have usually be working in the clients home: Oil paints, an oil palette, and an easel can be a liability in a home.

Thinking of problems with oil paint in a home I once had a pair of five year olds wipe their hands all round the palette then wipe their hands over each other and then leave a colourful trail through every room up to the parents bed. I felt fortunate that I was not there at the time and so was not held responsible. Another time I was help responsible: Working in a room with an acre of new white carpet I had carefully put down a protective cloth around me. I took a break leaving a small box of red chalk open on the cloth. In my absence a three year old dabbed his foot in the chalk and printed his footprints all over the white carpet. I was billed for the cleaning.