Lynn Kennedy, an incredibly accomplished artist, joined us on Monday, October 14, 2024, for the first G.A.G. portrait painting demonstration in a very long time.

Lynn’s portraits have been exhibited in prestigious places such as Piano Nobile Kings Place, London, where a self-portrait was shortlisted for the Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize in 2019; the National Gallery in Dublin where portraits were shortlisted in 2019 and 2023 for the Zurich portrait prize. And the Signal Arts Centre in Bray, where Lynn had a solo exhibition.

After graduating from the Institute of Art, Design and Technology in 1993, Lynn has worked in a variety of arts related areas, including animation and photography. The strong focus on digital media in the nineties, created a desire to return to the hands-on approach. Which, after a study in BIFE, brought her to portrait painting in oils. Her previous experience in photography and other art-related areas have contributed greatly to her understanding of light and how it affects shapes.

On to the demo. The first step in Lynn’s approach is preliminary sketching to determine composition. If reference photos are used, they’ll be full size with strong contrasts.

The next step is a charcoal sketch on newsprint, for which an area roughly the size of the final painting is used. The background is prepped with willow charcoal. A putty rubber is then used to carve back shapes whilst compressed charcoal is used to define shapes. Many years of sketching have developed Lynn’s eye for assessing the size and position of the facial features. She also uses dividers to measure the distance between eyes and pupils, vital for the all-important likeness. Another method she may use is turning the drawing or painting upside down, to help trick the brain seeing shapes, rather than eyes, nose, etc. And of course, squinting helps to see the bigger picture.

The charcoal sketch serves to get to know the face; the darks, the lights, the shapes. It can be transferred to the canvas, but for the demo, Lynn went straight on to the next stage, the rough drafting of the portrait on to the canvas, using a diluted raw umber.

The canvas was a brown linen which Lynn stretched over the frame herself.  She also uses board, oil paper and regular canvases. Because of the darker background of the linen, no priming was needed.

Lynn has a wonderful variety of brushes, but is not stuck to any in particular. Mostly synthetic bristle brushes and not necessarily expensive either,  as long as they feel right. She pushed and pulled the paint to create large shapes, feeling her way round, comparing, sometimes measuring, but all the time referring to the reference photograph.

Apps like DaVinicEye (https://davincieyeapp.com/) or Snapseed (https://snapseed.online/) can also aid accuracy by comparing the reference photograph with the work-in-progress.

The next stage was the mixing of paint for preparation of the various skin colours. Mostly made up from the Winsor Newton range of oil paints: Winsor yellow, Winsor red, Alizarin crimson, Fr ultramarine and Titanium white. Depending on the model, permanent rose may be useful for lips and burnt sienna for darker skins. Lynn finds it easier to prep the various skin colours in advance. They can be adjusted during the painting process, but it saves starting from scratch with each section. She finds getting the skin right first, works better for her. Leaving the eyes till last forces her to be more accurate. Although it’s not about exact accuracy, certain colours and shapes are strengthened and enhanced, such as blues, greens and purples. This makes for a livelier and more individual portrait. It’s about not being afraid; the paint was laid on as if it was a jigsaw, each of the separate areas and negative spaces were closely observed, each little reflection was considered.

This was not a systematic dark to light kind of approach, or a thin layering of colours. It was obvious that it’s all about what she saw and how she wanted it to be represented on the canvas. Shaping and correcting as she went. Lynn calls herself a figurative painter rather than a portrait painter. This gives her the freedom to style as she wishes.

The background is partially incorporated during the painting process, to help define shapes. Usually, the background is painted in a complementary colour.

The maximum time spent at each session is about 4 hours and ideally it takes no more than a few days to complete a painting.

Overall, we had the impression that this artist was not stuck to rigid rules, very much went with her own feelings of what and how she wanted to produce her work. She’s versatile and open to trying out different things and encouraged us to do the same. Try different genres, techniques and lots of drawing. And if interested in painting people, carry a sketchbook and take the opportunity to sketch people, be it live in cafes or from photos. It’s always special to see a great artist at work in real life and Lynn really made it come to life for us. A brilliant morning presented by a brilliant artist.

You can see more of Lynn’s work on Instagram.

And if you simply Google her, you’ll see some amazing stuff.

She also currently teaches Oil Painting for Beginners in BIFE. (Sold out)

And within days of the demo for G.A.G., Lynn won the prize for Best in Show at the 143rd Royal Ulster Academy of Arts exhibition. A beautifully sensitive portrait of a young girl with Down’s Syndrome looking directly at the viewer whilst holding a milkshake. You can see the painting plus write-up on irishnews.com.