Self-Portrait with Flowers: Oil Painting

#sothebyssundaysketch is always a race against time. Will I finish before the light fades and I end up taking a yellowy photo of my artistic attempt taken in artificial light? 🤔 This is really tight when it's winter but now the days are longer, it's a little better. I have until 5pm until the sunlight weakens. Then I panic. I feel like I'm on The Great British Bake-Off, except it's the Great Sotheby's Sunday Sketch-Off!

Yesterday, it was an art history lesson again. I love those. I'd never heard of the famous French artist, Jean-Pierre Cassigneul (1935-). He's known for his stylish women usually wearing a hat with interest. For instance, a hat with flowers, often in a modern 'take' on Post-Impressionism e.g. Le 21 Juin (Willow Gallery) woman seated at table in black dress, white pearls and wide-rimmed hat with flowers. Like Bonnard, he uses blocks of bright colours. (Sotheby's example was an oil painting of a woman seated at a table wearing a large hat with flowers resting her head in her right hand with a fruit bowl and a plate with a knife in front of her on the table.) I didn't have time to look through Cassigneul's paintings and learn much about him before thinking up my own composition and painting it. Only once I'd finished my painting, taken a photo 📷 of it in natural light and uploaded it, did I have more time to read about Cassigneul and look through further images of his work yesterday evening and today while writing this post. 

Before beginning to sketch it out, I sat in front of my blank oil painting paper and went through many different permutations and ideas. Eventually, I settled on one composition and even then it took on a life of its own. I never quite know where a drawing or painting is going to take me until it is completed. The same is true of my academic books and research - I write a book plan, down to chapter titles and topic outlines, only to find that the book has a life of its own and goes in its own direction, takes shape without me, and I merely follow. 

I turned this painting into an autobiographical one with me as the woman wearing my own hat 👒with flower. I do actually possess this hat and I have worn it but I have changed it considerably for this painting for colour unity. I placed it on the table but it didn't speak to me so I put it on and took some bad selfies 📱 (one of which I lost, I don't know where it went, I think it accidentally deleted itself) to help me envisage the perspective of the angles I need to draw to depict the hat sitting on my head. I then drew the selfie in pencil and this became the portrait and composition. The bouquet came from my imagination. Unlike last week's #sothebyssundaysketch still life oil painting, I didn't use a 9B pencil, leave the dark pencil marks on the paper and paint the oil over the under-drawing. This time I used a lighter 3B pencil, drew my self-portrait, then rubbed it out, only leaving faint markings as my guidelines to paint over. As with the previous oil painting, I drew in pencil over the oil paint during the painting process to give definition of line, but to a lesser extent than in the prior one. It's similar to sgraffito but it creates dark pencil lines rather than showing the paper or oil colours beneath. In this painting, you mostly see this effect in the bouquet and my smiling lips and the line to depict the crease in the cheek when one smiles. 

Unlike Cassigneul, I'm going for a natural look not a fashionable one, hence I've left out any depiction of the clothes so there's no visual distraction from the symbolism in the flowers and the portrait - it's the soulmate idea of it's the person that matters, not the trappings. If anything, I'm recreating a 60's look as seen by the flowing hair and style of hat. Except I changed the colour of my hat from cream to red and dark peach and changed the white flower on my hat to a dahlia 🏵 reflecting the colour of my hair to symbolise long-term bond, commitment and marriage 👰. The bouquet I'm holding is reflecting the symbolism of the dahlia by foreshadowing a bridal bouquet. I used the end of my paintbrush to draw the petals of the dahlia in a passionate, swirling motion (sgraffito technique). My hair, hat and flower are more in the post-impressionist style as is the block of deep red in the 💐. The red in the hat is then reflected in the red of my lips and the bouquet of tulips to represent soulmates and true love with one red rose 🌹 in the centre of the bouquet to stand for love at first sight. The red rose also symbolises passionate, endless love. I am holding the 24 deep red tulips 🌷 bouquet which signifies a mutual 'I'm Yours Forever' and is gift wrapped.🎁 I am looking out from the painting and the one I love receives the meaningful bouquet from me. There's a mutual exchange. I smile warmly, lovingly at The One. My intention is to create intimacy and draw the viewer into the painting. 

In the image on Instagram I've taken a close-up of my oil painting so the full bouquet 💐cannot be seen. For that image, see my PinInterest gallery:

https://pin.it/2EIxgVC

In the latter image, you can see the full bouquet with a bit of the gift wrapping around it but not that I am holding it. I've omitted that part in my painting, it's something I've left to the imagination of the viewer to contemplate the gestures and story taking place in the painting.