Charcoal portrait paintings by Michael Heseltine.
Paintings can be commissioned by contacting me at michael@heseltine1.demon.co.uk
Please visit other areas of my work:
Recent charcoal portraits
Recent oil paintings
Oil paintings from 1990 to 2000
Portrait painting has had a revival in the last year in the UK and Scotland. Some of the most striking drawings have been done in charcoal. The black and white medium, as in photography, can produce an image uncluttered with irrelevant information, and hence have huge impact.
I tend to adopt a representational style to my charcoal drawings because often I know little of the character of the sitter and it would be wrong to subject my limited observations upon them! By concentrating on the physical, the viewer can conduct their own interpretation of character. Often the alien enviroment of the artists studio creates a false pose and expression, so making the sitting as informal as possible helps. Portrait painting is a new departure for me, having ignored it since art college. However I have taken to it partly because of the challenge but also the definitive goals it presents. A drawing is either a likeness or not, whereas the objectives in landscape painting can feel infinite.
Photography has influenced the poses I use. I like the informal approach, capturing a moment. This is especially suitable for young children who cannot keep still for long!. I work on preliminary drawings and experiment with the poses for sometime, before starting the finished picture. Charcoal has the ability to be both soft and hard, which creates a variation in tone and line which I use to help create the focus of the drawing. I try to use the white of the paper for the highlights to convey a freshness and unlaboured effect.
Contact email
Charcoal Portraits can be commissioned in Scotland.
Copyright Michael Heseltine, 2001.
These images may not be used, in whole or part, for any other product. No reproduction, lamination, mounting, trimming, matting, framing may be made using any Heseltine image contained herein.
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