Portrait Artist of the Year. Lenny Henry.

I’m also art school trained from the late 60s to early 70s. We had to do life drawing and whatever subject you did be it fine art, textiles graphics etc it was part of the curriculum. I still do life drawing and portrait sessions weekly now. I don’t think art students do life drawing nowadays which to me, is very sad. Some times we get students coming to our groups so they can do life drawing as they can’t or darent do it at college.

I just don’t see the point of working from photographs. I tried copying from photos during lockdown when I was stuck for models to work from all I got was accurate copies of photographs. To me it’s about capturing an essence or the look of that person. I don’t see that in the painting of Lenny Henry

The previous winner of PAOTY Curtis Holder did a brilliant drawing of Carlos Acosta whereby he worked directly from his model and chatted to him so he got to know and understand him. It’s in Birmingham museum and art gallery if anyone get the chance to see it

If there are any talented grans out there the competition for 2023 is now open for submissions.
makingamark.blogspot.com/2022/10/portrait-artist-of-year-series-10-call..html#:~:text=You%20have%20a%20four%20months

Oh Deedaa a voice of sanity. Do students do life drawing at art school now ?

I'm another one who was an art student in the 60s and really don't understand the current fashion for photo realism. Why not just rake a photo? As for painting a portrait from a photograph when you've got the model sitting in front of you! I was always told that a photograph flattened a subject, the way to understand a structure was to draw it from the subject, not copy a photograph.

Lenny' comment 'I'm shocked' summed it up.......pity she put so much effort into his body without any facial clarify whatsoever. If someone had asked me who the portrait was I would never have guessed it was the lovely Lenny 😢

Thanks re. info on Sky Arts 👍

And on Freesat. 147.

foxie48

grannydarkhair

I don’t have a Sky subscription so hadn’t seen any of these before. I like the style of the LH one but that isn’t his face, I certainly wouldn’t have known it was meant to be him. I like the Graham Norton one but I love the Carlos Acosta one, it’s absolutely beautiful.

You don't need a subscription for Sky arts, so you can watch it if you want to.

Its on Freeview, channel 11

Sky Arts is on Freeview - press 11.

grannydarkhair

I don’t have a Sky subscription so hadn’t seen any of these before. I like the style of the LH one but that isn’t his face, I certainly wouldn’t have known it was meant to be him. I like the Graham Norton one but I love the Carlos Acosta one, it’s absolutely beautiful.

You don't need a subscription for Sky arts, so you can watch it if you want to.

I don’t have a Sky subscription so hadn’t seen any of these before. I like the style of the LH one but that isn’t his face, I certainly wouldn’t have known it was meant to be him. I like the Graham Norton one but I love the Carlos Acosta one, it’s absolutely beautiful.

The Graham Norton one was brill!

Morag is such a sweet and gentle girl -I hate criticising her !
But her portrait of Lenny Henry was really weak and absolutely nothing like him particularly around the mouth area .

Kathleen Soriano looked upset and couldn't fake any enthusiasm .

The judges are always looking for someone who has their own unique style and it was obvious that Morag was a favourite from the beginning .

I really like some of Morag's work -particularly the portrait of herself and of her fiancé , her use of colour in skin tones is very exciting , but in two portraits - her treatment of clothing detracted from the face , which is after all the whole point of a portrait .

I'm a big fan of Lenny Henry and he deserves a better portrait painting than this one. It just could be anyone.

MrsKen33

I had a classical art training, albeit in the 60s. I cannot understand this vogue for grids and taking a photograph of the model, then painting from that. The model could go home after five minutes. I quite liked Morag’s painting technique,but it was a portrait she was painting so in my view a good likeness was paramount. Sadly she failed in that.

I recently started art classes as a complete beginner. We've been shown the grid technique to encourage us to think about shapes and to help us with proportion but tbh I find it easier without. I've zilch artistic talent but love the classes, the time just flies!

I had a classical art training, albeit in the 60s. I cannot understand this vogue for grids and taking a photograph of the model, then painting from that. The model could go home after five minutes. I quite liked Morag’s painting technique,but it was a portrait she was painting so in my view a good likeness was paramount. Sadly she failed in that.

Urmstongran

I’ve just looked it up.
Here it is.

She’s called it ‘Len’ to reflect the person he is at home, not THE ‘Lenny Henry - Entertainer’.

I like it. She’s caught the essence of him superbly i think. 😊

I'm not at all keen.

Lenny Henry is a good looking man; I realise he's not always going to be smiling or laughing but, even when serious he has a twinkle in his eye.

He just looks miserable and very depressed in this portrait, older than he is, sad and with all the woes of the world on his shoulders.

I like Graham's portrait.

Glorianny

I'm not very fond of portraits which don't show any background whatsoever, even a very minimum one. I have been looking and wondering why she didn't at least put in some evidence of a chair? And then I realised that had she done so the legs would look absolutely wrong. I also think it is more of a sketch than a portrait .

I think his left leg looks wrong, his thigh is too wide compared with his other leg - I noticed that before I studied his face, which doesn’t capture him.

I'm not very fond of portraits which don't show any background whatsoever, even a very minimum one. I have been looking and wondering why she didn't at least put in some evidence of a chair? And then I realised that had she done so the legs would look absolutely wrong. I also think it is more of a sketch than a portrait .

That sounds like the Emporer's New Clothes. Why bother to pose for an artist if it doesn't have to look like them. I think they need new judges. Worst decision they have made throughout all of the series.

This is dreadful. Surely the most important aspect of a portrait is that the artist captures a likeness? Surely that's even more important when your work is going to hang in the National Portrait Gallery and depicts a well-known celebrity. Why oh why didn't somebody who cared about Morag tell her that her painting looked absolutely nothing at all like Lenny Henry? Why couldn't she see it herself? And what on earth is wrong with the judges? Their selections are bizarre, and framed by waffle that makes you realise they're just not in touch with the real world and the average viewer.
Poor Morag has been hung out to dry by not only people who love her and should've spoken up but also by the three judges, who should not have put her in a position where her lack of ability was so flagrantly exposed for everybody to see and potentially laugh at.

Good lord penfold!!! Her majesty look like Chris Higgins in a horrid blue polyester frock?! Dreadful and not her beautiful petite self. Wasted opportunity and frankly an insult! Love the biro pic, well executed with very difficult medium

We really did not like it, surely a portrait should bear some recognisable facial features of the sitter, which this portrait definitely didn’t do. There have been some brilliant portraits throughout the whole series and we’re at a loss to see why this artist was chosen.
I agree that it needs a change of judges it’s becoming a bit ‘same old’ it needs a fresh new look.

I loved the Carlos Acosta one.

Urmstongran

I’ve just looked it up.
Here it is.

She’s called it ‘Len’ to reflect the person he is at home, not THE ‘Lenny Henry - Entertainer’.

I like it. She’s caught the essence of him superbly i think. 😊

I really liked her self portrait and the portrait of her (now) husband but I don't think this final portrait lives up to that promise that she showed.. I agree she captures his essence in the posture but for me it still lacks real originality in the overall portrait..