New Thing #17 – Have my portrait painted

Staring is hard. Like, really hard. And I don’t mean a one minute staring competition in the playground. I mean a full-on stare fest where you feel like your eyes are shrivelling up and your brain actually hurts. And sitting is hard too. Particularly sitting still.

These thoughts, and hundreds of other similarly mundane ones, slipped through my mind as I concentrated on holding the pose that the painter had put me in. And there I was thinking New Thing # 17 – Getting my portrait painted would be a fun, possibly naked but definitely enlightening, activity.

I’ve actually never had any intention of having my portrait painted. Like photos at birthday parties with people you don’t know or like, I find the results hideously embarrassing. I can’t understand why someone would choose to spend good money (a lot of good money actually) having their likeness committed to canvas and then hung on the living room wall. It just seems like the ultimate in egotistical indulgence.

Caroline Wade. This woman will be famous one day

So when I was put in touch with the hugely talented Caroline from Face Portrait, I was a little wary to say the least. I wasn’t sure if this was something I particular wanted to try or, if I’m totally honest, waste a New Thing on. But I was slowly convinced by numerous people, most notably my mother who almost wept when I told her I wasn’t going to do it (I was an ugly child and I think she feels she deserves at least one good picture of her eldest). So, after much cajoling, I came round to the idea and even actually started looking forward to it.

After a couple of false starts (see last week’s hasty entry), we finally managed to set a date for the first “sitting” (this is artist parlance for modelling I’m told). Given the intricate nature of an oil painting, this is a New Thing that will actually span a number of weeks due to the sheer volume of woman-hours needed to actually paint the thing. Caroline had agreed to do a head and shoulders portrait, pretty much the minimum you can do as portrait artist, but even so we are looking down the business end of about 14 cumulative hours or so.

Not bad for a "sketch"

And so it was that I found myself in a studio in Muswell Hill, North London, fully-clothed (the “life drawing” suggestion had not gone down well) and filled with anxiety-tinged anticipation. Caroline has been painting since she was a small child and has honed her technique over the years into a striking and individual style that is both instantly recognisable whilst being totally individual.

She began by positioning me in her preferred style, which in this case was staring down at the corner of the room. She then sketched my face and neck a couple of times, trying out different ideas. It was interesting to see and hear how she was interpreting the natural light and my silly, beardy face to produce something approaching a picture of me on paper. The end result was brilliant and I had to stop myself from just taking the charcoal drawing and running off with that. That would be silly.

Fuelled by tea and biscuits, we embarked on the main painting. I was glad to see that Caroline hesitated slightly before putting paintbrush to canvas for the first time, as though plucking up the courage to make that first daub. It was like getting a new mobile and seeing how long you could keep the plastic bits on the screen for. Well, I do that anyway. But once she started, by God the woman was a machine. She went from blank canvas to pretty good likeness in a few hours. We passed the time by chatting about everything and anything, from art to family to partners to…err…bidets. When the conversation dried up, she placed a small TV on the floor and introduced me to the women from Sex and the City (a whole other New Thing right there).

I found that after 5 hours the strain of staring downwards, even at a TV, was starting to get to me. Every itch or shake was amplified by the knowledge that you shouldn’t scratch it or respond to it. I started to feel phantom itches in places that never normally itched. My eyes started wandering of their own accord and I would be completely unaware that I had been staring at the wall instead of the floor until Caroline gently reminded me to look down again. It is a credit to her talents that she was able to take all these probably hugely annoying twitches in her stride and still produce something awesome after only a few hours.

When she finally called time after almost seven hours, I surprised myself by actually not wanting the session to end. It had been an intriguing journey for a philistine like me to watch someone produce a beautiful sketch and almost an entire oil painting in a matter of hours. In the past it has taken me a week to successfully doodle my name in bubble writing so this was nothing short of a miracle. We agreed that she should keep the final painting in her portfolio, to exhibit and maybe even sell one day. I like the idea of someone else owning a painting of me. It makes me feel special. And a little bit proud.

The half-finished product.

I’ll be updating the blog with the subsequent sittings to illustrate the “journey from canvas to portrait”, as an art critic probably wouldn’t say, so keep your eyes peeled.

If you’d like a portrait done of yourself, a loved one, your family or a pet, I cannot recommend enough checking out Caroline. She is going to be huge one day. Head to www.faceportrait.co.uk to find out more.