Most Realistic One

This oil painting ‘The Green Eyed Girl (2017) (Sold) could be the most realistic one I have ever painted. After my oil painting ’Roundism – 12-02-17 (Sold)’ that was quite a change. Smack in the middle of my roundism revolution I was I started a couple of years before. Then all of a sudden an old colleague called and put me on a different trajectory altogether. That’s how it goes. Sometimes you paint where the wind takes you. It coincides with the end of my ‘18 Variations on the Same Theme’ series anyway.

Hardly Sit Still

This was a commission for a classic portrait. The young girl, age 3, has beautiful green eyes (hence the title). She was very animated during the sessions. That is fun to watch but difficult to work with as an artist. Once I read it is hardly possible to have a child pose for you and sit still under age 12. How did Rubens have his daughter do that and be able to paint her? One day I must ask him personally.

Reference Pictures

So I had to take a lot of reference pictures in order to paint her in my studio. I came to an odd 100: from behind, side, three quarters and front. All with different facial features. Lucian Freud was on my mind. He was painting Martin Gayford for half a year, 8 hours per week. Therefor he could study him well, creating ‘über-realist’ portraiture. One could say he encapsulated more aspects of likeness than the shutter speed of a camera allows. Unfortunately that has not been the case with my piece but at least I had one big advantage. That was to see if my work also would match all the other reference photos I took. Surprisingly it did.

Click here for the build-up of the painting.

Click here to read more information.

Oil on wood panel (50 x 60 x 0.9 cm)

Artist: Corné Akkers