ISOLATION ARTIST BLOG - DAY 31

Todays theme is Portraits

Grayson Perry's Art Club focused on Portraits tonight. The best part of the programme for me was when he drew his wife, Phillipa and later on painted her portrait onto a large ceramic plate. She was visibly moved by this and very thoughtfully, said to him "You know me better than I know myself". They were both quite emotional and Grayson said something like having to wear your heart on your sleeve to make a good piece of art. He admitted he was out of his comfort zone doing a portrait and to me this allowed him to make a meaningful piece of work. 

I was amused when he advised us not to focus on the detail early on in a portrait - leave the eyes until the end, he said. This reminded me of when I used to teach art to apprentice hairdressers. I taught them portrait painting too and within the first five minutes they were all trying to draw in the eyelashes, eyebrows and makeup.

Chris follows "Manx nostalgia" on social media - this amuses me as I'm the one from the Isle of Man and he was born in Hertfordshire. Yesterday there was a group portrait posted up from St Joseph's Convent School, Finch Road, Douglas circa 1966. "How many Convents are there on the Isle of Man?" he said - highly amusing again as the Island is 10 x 30 miles with most of the central parts being uninhabitable. Of course there was only one Convent on the Isle of Man and there I was age four, in the group portrait. Standing at end of the second row in my yellow dress, looking very grumpy indeed.