18 Artists&Illustrators
ABOVE Catherine
MacDiarmid,
Behind the Dog
Paint, oil on
canvas, 25x30cm
Catherine MacDiarmid
Having previously put in 12-hour days as a cleaner, teacher,
painter and parent, Catherine MacDiarmid was inspired
to embark on her Behind the Paint series by her time spent
as a children’s face painter. In the resulting paintings, the
artist has created hyper-realistic artworks of children
“behind a mask”.
Behind the Dog Paint was inspired by one of Catherine’s
face painting clients, a young girl who described the exact
kind of dog she wanted to be. With the parent’s permission,
the artist took a series of reference photos of her
handiwork. “I love it when a child is very clear about what
they want to be,” she says. “I don’t always get a photo that
inspires me though. I choose carefully whether the image
communicates something to me other than the disguise.
This is usually something I see in the eyes.”Back in her garage studio,
Catherine set to work with a loose
underpainting, drawing straight
onto the canvas in bright primary
oil colours diluted with turps and
rubbing back to the surface to
create lighter tones, form and
structure. After checking the
proportions, she then worked
wet-in-wet, using mixtures
of primary colours and white paint
to create vibrant tones. “I like to use Michael Harding and
Winsor and Newton Artists oils with genuine turpentine and
linseed oil in the later layers,” she explains. “I make sure
my ratio of solvent to oil is correct for the upper layers so
that I am working ‘fat over lean’. If I am lucky, I get a run of
days to complete a portrait painting so that the layers don’t
dry, but this is not always possible with my busy life, so a
quick wetting of the surface with my dilutants helps me
then work on a wet surface again.”
Surprisingly, Catherine reveals that one buyer of her
paintings described them as having a “Marmite effect”
on people. “I get really good feedback about my art,” she
explains. “Some people love it, but they admit they couldn’t
live with it, then there are some who fall in love with a
particular piece which they say they can’t live without.”
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