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I really have a penchant for depicting British faces which belong to a male in stark yellow paint. Huh, is this a habit of mine ? I’ll be discussing some portraits down below. I hope this enticing scan watercolour of a yellow British man ( that rhymed ) , tickles your fancy. You can read my rants down below.  Guess who feels relatively happy about their series of paintings that they made, inspired by David Bailey Ross ?? It’s me ! Skiyodu !  |
My series of paintings which I am making as part of my A-level Art schoolwork has now been completed. 36 heads inspired by the work of David Bailey Ross - who makes haunting watercolour images. I am ecstatic !
This has been a long-term project, at least for me. My first portrait was painted on the 8th of November 2022 and my last portrait was painted on the 19th of January 2023. It took me 2 months and 11 days to complete these 36 paintings !
I set myself the goal of making 36 as David Bailey Ross had made a collage which displayed 6 by 6 rows of haunting watercolour portraits - what’s not to love ?
I won’t show all 36 paintings, however I will show some of my favourite paintings, the ones which won’t appear on my Instagram.
Enough horrendous banter with myself and let me show you some of my paintings. It’s been so nice to make art without placing pressure on myself to share all of it on social media.
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I am especially happy with this piece. Personally, I have had struggles working with black and white watercolour. It’s not a natural inclination for me to do monochrome paintings. However, I am so grateful that I tried it out - as I am super happy with this head. It feels industrial and textured, two words that I adore. The light washes of green, burgundy and blue allow the “skiyodu” touch to seep through. Might have to do more monochrome pieces in the future ! My monochromatic portraits truly pop amidst the sea of colourful portraits. David Bailey Ross has an amazing way with the brush, I am so glad to have studied his work.  |
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Chronologically, this painting was one of the first I had done. There’s a specific magic to this one. David Bailey Ross allows his colours to bleed into one another, I feel as if I got this effect down in the nose area especially. There still needed to be refining at this stage, my paint was overly wet which caused my paint to pool instead of bleed. Furthermore, I wanted to develop my depiction of the facial features in these portraits and add more description. David Bailey Ross’s portraits have fairly abstract features, so I was not aiming to replicate him in this regard - it was simply a personal goal of,  “Hey Skid, how cool with it be if these had a tint of realism ?” |
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This is where I added a tint of realism to my paintings. I am happy with this one, however originally I scrutinised this work to an extreme extent. I am happy with the proportions and the level of description in this piece - although the application of paint isn’t too true to David Bailey Ross. That’s okay though as I did not aim to replicate his work stroke by stroke, but rather I analyses his work to be inspired and apply some of his methods to my previous knowledge of portraiture. I took the photo that the painting is based off of - thank you the Year 11 who let me photograph and paint them, will not mention a name for privacy’s sake. It was a great practice, working off of my own photos. I have previously taken photographs before, but I haven’t painted from an original photograph before. |
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I often attribute songs to my paintings. Whatever’s in my headphones at the time of painting is what I attribute to the art, which dictates the emotion of said piece. I was listening to Big Black’s absolute enigma of a song “Fists of Love”. If you haven’t listened to the song it’s painful and intense, like an emotional machine. The song title as well “Fists of Love” has been burned into my memory, such a visceral track. Sonically and lyrically. “Fists of Love” is THE song I attribute to this portrait. Anyways my tangent about Big Black can wait for another day. Let’s discuss this painting. David Bailey Ross had painted in the past portraits with extreme facial expressions, the screams, the wails, the cries. I figured it would be beneficial to paint a portrait with such expressions as it was something I hadn’t forayed into previously. It’s beneficial as an artist to learn how to paint a variety of different emotions, there’s a particular dynamism and energy to a passionate facial expression which a stoic one does not encapsulate. I think that’ll be the final painting I show today. The rest which I will show publically ( maybe 4 more give or take ), will be posted to my Instagram which is @skiyodu. So glad to have finished this series of paintings, let’s see what the later days of January and the early days of February hold for the creative journey of Skid Ferdinand.  I do sort of talk about myself as if I’m some early 20th century hero, sack of food over their shoulder, looking for an adventure. I can assure you I am not Pigling Bland, however that is the best Beatrix Potter book respectfully. Upon reflection, I have learnt two, extremely important things when creating these portraits inspired by David Bailey Ross. Number one : I want to try and cultivate a healthier relationship between me and my art, a subject who I love so much and arduously care for. Enough lampooning and hyper-focusing on social media, I am placed on this Earth to produce important work. By “important”, I am not placing emphasis on the material idea of “important”. You know the culturally significant, money-generating, surplus of Instagram likes “important”. What I mean by important work is: how enriching that work is to my daily life and my mental health. I realised through making 36 paintings I couldn’t possibly post them all to Instagram, it wasn’t in my personal interest to do so. It was so rewarding just sitting down in a quiet environment and just painting. Being present in the moment if you will. Remove digital approval from your perception of your art. It’s extremely rewarding when you want to be productive and healthy.  Number two : We need to take artistic risks, especially if we believe we will fail. Portraiture has not been my strong-suit for a long time. My passion for portraiture with a “organic median” circa 2021 dropped off with a vengeance, and my skill diminished with it. After nearly 2 years of creating exclusively abstract, digital work with the occasional cartoon-y self-portrait, I started my A-level course with a priority on portraiture. I cannot lie, I was nervous embarking on this series, with shoddy skills in regards to proportion and application of paint - how could I make work that I would be proud of, which is also technically sound ? I realised, I had to put all of the pre-conceived notions of my artistic ability aside, and I just had to start painting. Because surprise surprise, when you put all of your energy into making 36 refined outcomes in response to an artist you admire, you become a better artist ! One of the most rewarding things about this experience was slowly realising my paint strokes were getting more confident. My weight of line was slowly getting more dynamic, and my editing even more unorthodox. All of this progress would’ve never occurred if I didn’t persevere with making 36 paintings and if I revelled in my personal self-doubt. If you have an artistic idea, take the steps to draw out the thumbnail for said piece, work out the colour scheme, draw a plan, etc. Even if it fails, it’s still so rewarding to generate creative output. Woo … the Skid Ferdinand recap is done ! Blogging is a marathon, not a race. It’s hard to sustain the energy for the blog amidst making art for Instagram on top of my A-level studies, but when you’re truly passionate about something you’ll find a way to get it done. I’m getting this blog post done ! Script written out officially, now all I have to do is customise the text and make it all fancy for the lovely citizens of Skid-ville.  Have a good night everyone. Or a good day, or a good afternoon. I know we aren’t all confined to one time zone ! Lots of love. Mahal mahal mahal.  |
