The Self-Isolation Residency 8th April 2020: Day 10

Another good day painting in the studio today, not just on the self portrait project but also on some of my landscape studies. The self portrait is the thing that's really keeping my attention at the moment, especially after yesterdays under-painting. It hadn't been part of my original plan, but I really like the way that the under-painting is looking, so much so I have decided to pursue the idea of these very bright, primary colours in the first full version of a completed piece. It may not be the only completed piece that I do, but I will at least do it and see how it looks.

Although I really liked the colour of yesterday's study, I didn't really feel entirely happy with it's tonal balance, so today I have been experimenting with variations on the same theme. These experiments have brought me to two potentially different approached to the painting: top left yesterdays original study and top right today's alternative.  I like both of these in different ways and it may well be that I do completed versions of both.

In the first study I am really interested in the way the canvas divides into 3 vertically and I especially like the way that I have continued the yellow from the wall across the seat of the chair and into the stripe of the rug. This gives a really strong structure  to the painting as well as keeping it very light and bright. In the second study I am interested in the way that the red has began to dominate the painting; now running from the wall, across the floor and onto the plan-chest. I'm not as keen on this solution mainly because it darkens the whole image too much. But there is a new area of interest that it has sparked in my head, after I had completed it I realised the it reminded me of 'The Red Studio' by Henri Matisse (bottom image). The connection is of course initially made through the colour and the fact that both are studios, but actually there is another connection which runs through this whole idea. To some extent The Red Studio is also a self portrait of the artist, it's a form of retrospective featuring many of Matisse's earlier pieces and giving an insight into his work and his character, just as I hope that my piece will.

For more information about The Red Studio click here. h