22 artistMay 2020 http://www.painters-online.co.uk
COMPETITION PAINTING
as Steve, on whom I had recently
practised.
I started by painting full-scale
sketches on paper. Sketching is not
the risky and peculiar thing that the
judges, presenters and even quite a
few members of the growing audience
seemed to think it was, it’s just a way
of gathering visual information so that
the oil painting will present fewer nasty
surprises.
Everyone else was working on just
one piece, they kept saying. I wasn’t
really looking at anyone else’s work, but
when I did the other artists seemed to
radiate confidence. David was wrestling
manfully with his tonal values. The
young woman beside me was carefully
filling things in.
Lunch break came and I wolfed down
a plateful of pasta, and when I returned
I decided to start on the canvas. I
banged out the wedges to make the
canvas taut and sanded it down. I think
this was another ‘interesting thing’, and
one of the judges passed me saying
‘they’ll be sorry to miss that’. I put the
canvas on the easel. It looked so big.
An audience member came up to me.
‘What are you doing?’ she said. ‘Why
are you starting again?’ All the anxiety
of the night before returned. I suddenly
felt boiling hot and sort of terrified. I
don’t know how I replied. Possibly I was
rude. I left the arena and removed a
layer of clothing.
When I came back I heard people
talking about me. They were saying
things like ‘there he is, the bloke who
does the cartoony drawings.’ Anna
and Angela found me and said that
the judges had referred to me in very
complimentary ways. Oh, I thought. I
might be able to do this. In the end
the oil painting was almost too easy to
paint, except I kept getting interrupted;
I had to do these odd interviews to
camera where they ask you how you’re
feeling. My problem is that I am just
too self-effacing, so most of those
interviews are probably useless, just
me saying ‘well, I feel okay. I don’t
suppose I’ll win, but... I’ve enjoyed it’,
in different ways. I tied up my painting,
and the moment came when Joan
Bakewell said ‘artists, step away from
your work’.
First reveal
After that it was the reveal moment,
when the paintings are turned around
and the models get to see them for
the first time. The reaction is usually
to gasp, smile, and say ‘well, they’re all
so different’, all of which Asa duly did.
He was then asked, as they all are, to
choose one painting to take home with
him. He looked at them carefully before
choosing David’s. The real prize for me
was that, when Kathleen congratulated
him, David said ‘he should have chosen
Charles’ painting’. I couldn’t believe it.
What a generous thing to say.
After that, ages while the judges
deliberated and then were filmed
deliberating, there was lots of
interaction with the audience and
more interviews to camera. I still didn’t
know how I felt. Then we trooped in
to have our reactions recorded to
being whittled down to three possible
winners. This moment also has its own
routine. The winners are asked to move
away from the line and stand together.
Those who have not got through are
thanked, congratulated, and leave.
Some are interviewed. Then the three
winners are interviewed to camera and
asked how they feel. I came up with the
idea that I had made a painting while
my colleagues had made portraits. I
thought that was a reasonably obscure
answer, and would give people
something to puzzle over, allowing me
to avoid saying anything embarrassing.
It seemed to work.
Finally we were asked to line up to
be told who’d got through to the next
stage. The remaining audience were
in front of us, the cameras were fixed
on our faces. Who was going to win?
Well, I did. Anna and Angela were
shoved towards me for the customary
congratulatory hugs, and I had another
interview about how I felt. This time it
was okay, I had an acceptable emotion.
Surprised. I was also very pleased to
have won. The charming young woman
who’d called before the first heat called
me again a few days afterwards. Did Iwant to win? You bet, I said. I want to
win the whole competition.
Before the first heat I had only thought
about getting through it, but now I
thought, why shouldn’t I win?. My main
thoughts were a. how my career as a
portrait painter will develop, b. what
sort of relationship will I have with
the celebrity whose portrait I will be
painting as part of the prize for winning
and c. how will I spend the £10,000 prize
money?Semi-final
I was in a terrible state by the time of
the semi-final. The first hint of disquiet
came when I asked Anna’s Auntie
Mary to come and sit for me (left), and
somehow my confidence in my ability
to catch a likeness was shaken. I wonder
if it was that while before I treated each
drawing as a genuine challenge to get
the likeness, now I’d started to think
that I could no longer miss. The stakes
had just got higher. Angela came with us
again and it was more or less exactly the
same, the same conversation, the same
procedure.
The premise of the semi-final is that
the setting, the pose and the model will
be more complex. More cocktail-fuelled
research had shown two possibilities:
either with a model in an extraordinary
setting or a multiple model affair. I
wasn’t worried about painting more
than one model at once, but the
‘extraordinary setting’ one was hard –
the painters were set a long way back
from a model almost overwhelmed by
her costume.
It was a big space that we were
confronted with when word was finally
sent through to let us in. Instead of the
big, circular construction that allowed
three models to be painted from
quite close proximity by nine artists,
there was a chair on a dais, against a
background of lights and red velvet,
and a large semicircle of nine easels.
It was the worst scenario; the celebrity
model was Elaine Paige, with twinkly
lights behind her to suggest the ‘World
of Theatre’. Elaine Paige, charming
and good company as she is, is a small
person, quite a long way away and
swamped by her big, flouncy dress. My
position was difficult too, right in front,
facing the chair.
That wasn’t what one of the other
contestants thought, though. Placed at
one end of the line, she would much
have preferred to be painting from
where I was, and she demonstrated
this by standing in front of me, taking a
photograph from where I was standing
and proceeding to paint from it.
It was different from the first heat.p Mary Moss, gouache and ink, 153/4 3 113/4in
(40 3 30cm)