The developing stages
The developing stages for this series of portrait paintings on which I’m currently working begins with an interview process. First is a recorded interview. This is really just for personal use to help me create a portrait that involves imagery that reflects this person and, to a degree, who they are beyond external attributes. Some of the questions I might ask are, “Who did they most admire growing up? What’s your top five musical artists? How old do you feel?” Yeah, these are kind of basic questions, but they really lead up to the spontaneous questions that arrive through simply talking. That’s really where you get a better feel for an individual. This allows me to come to an idea of what I want to portray. Next, I’ll take reference shots of the person I’m interviewing and then sort through them in order to find the image that is most representational of that person. This is the skeleton of the piece from which I can build a composition around. Then, listening back to the interview as I draw on a piece of paper, I try to work out and sort the imagery from the interview to be able to combine it with the photo reference. I’ll take it into a digital format like Photoshop or Procreate and play with it there, which allows me to readjust things, without having to redraw them. I’ll also sometimes collage photos in there. I print the image back off to draw on top of it. This time is a seesaw, going back and forth from drawing from hand to digital until I get the reference that I want. Arriving at a sketch for the beginning stages of a painting.
