Drawings and Paintings

Sunday: three little updates

ERWhittington 1 Comment

Hello all! Hope you’re enjoying your various weekends. I’m having such a nice one – went to not-one-but-two birthday celebrations yesterday daytime and evening and had lots of fun (though it meant I was unable to go to another friend’s shindig/Paradise Garden fest in London or a festival my boyfriend had threatened to take me to in France (but we couldn’t really make it in the end anyway)… All very triple-quadruple booked, and I’m normally no way near this popular, but it’s funny how things all seem to happen at once!!) 🙂 Meanwhile, I’m just dreaming of a chance to go and see the new Ice Age film! And watching the final tonight!!! I am GUTTED that Germany did not go through, and will now have to support my third favourites, Spain (but am still deciding!).

So anyway, today is very leisurely and has consisted so far of finishing the novel ‘One Day’, which I loved, procrastinating wildly about doing the next section of my online course, failing spectactularly at replying to emails yet so far (though it is technically the weekend!). Excitingly, though, I hope to finish putting together a book I’ve been working on for a while now, featuring some of my favourite photographs (of myself; vain I know, but I really want something to remember all this by!!). Cannot wait to check the first copy and see it in print!!

So in amongst all this faffing and procrastinating and getting-things-done (I also intend to dye my old pointe shoes black, sort out my accounts/tax, acknowledge the fact that I need to address the monumentally boring task of choosing a new phone as my contract is about to run out, sort out my diary for Sept, Nov and Dec (when I am available for bookings, should anyone be interested!), and maybe even take my chihuahua for a walk/jog, I thought I’d top up my blog with a few stand-alone shots from recent times.

By Steven Billups, whose images I love and who I will be working with again this month in Germany. (Shot taken in an extremely BOILING part of Mexico; we didn’t last long out there):

By Max Operandi, who also shot me after this summery shoot at a Yerbury workshop a short time later; I’ve seen some of his shots from both, other than this one, and I think they are amazing. Can’t wait to show off more as soon as I can.

And a charcoal by Kristian Mumford, an Australian artist who used a shot by Christopher Ryan (with permission) for the basis of this work. (See images by Christopher Ryan from our shoot here: Lynn Creek Canyon). Kristian plans to create a whole series of artwork using my modelling images as inspiration, which is rather nice!

Fairy Paintings

ERWhittington 3 Comments

I was booked recently at Paul’s Studio by an artist wishing to begin a project he’d had in his mind for a while. Philip Malpass will be painting 4-6 large canvasses by sometime next year, from which prints will be made available through a new site devoted to fairy art. Meanwhile he is making a series of minipanels which will eventually be sold via small galleries. I feel very lucky and happy to have been chosen for this project, and think the two panels below (digital files won’t do them justice, I’m told and can well believe, but nevermind) are absolutely stunning! So magical!

Although Philip has been painting all his life, he has had a six year break until recently, so this project is hugely exciting for him and a creative release! We had a lot of fun in the studio, with me interpreting ‘fairyness’ by way of flitting and jumping, perching and skitting about as though flying and journeying between flowers and trees… 🙂 (I love how my job allows me to indulge myself in utter, utter girliness sometimes.)

As they are completed I hope to be able to show more. Phil tells me that painting with oils on such tiny canvasses (5″ by 5″) is a real challenge, but I think they must look so wonderful and special!

Here’s a file to give an idea of two of the minipanels created so far. I can’t wait to see and show more as they are painted! (You can click the image to make it slightly bigger, but remember, the intention is that it’s a small work of art!)

How beautiful!!

Postcards – an exhibition

ERWhittington 2 Comments

As some of you will know, I am in love with the ‘Zen Habits’ blog, and when writer Leo Babuta featured the quote

~‘Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.’~

at the top of today’s post I couldn’t help but scribble it out and add it to the mounted collection of phrases and art postcards (picked up from galleries/museums) hanging above my desk. One of my all time favourites is ‘Creativity is unexpected connection’ – I think it applies so well, and so surprisingly, which is fitting, to many different areas of life! I also have ‘The big secret is the ability to stay in the room’ above Holbein’s Erasme écrivant.

My board of postcards was originally inspired by a similar one which hangs in the bathroom of a painter I spent a year modelling for, who is exhibiting later this week (9th-26th May) at Messum’s on Cork Street in London.

You can find information about Robbie Wraith‘s show here and browse the artworks which will be on display here. I will definitely be going once I’m back from Scotland to look at some I haven’t seen before – over the course of a year, there amassed quite a few!


It seems a fitting time to reflect on my first ever experience of art modelling when I am, three years later, busier than I’ve ever been, being sent booking enquiries so frequently I can hardly keep up, and so incredibly lucky that I am offered work in different countries across the globe that I am able to travel and see so much. I am so grateful! Upcoming trips include Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Paris, Cornwall/Devon, Stockport and more, plus a possible booking in a part of the world I would perhaps never have the opportunity to visit otherwise (but I won’t mention before it’s confirmed just in case), and from October onwards I am planning some international travel that will take me to some exotic locations, similar to last year (but different places!). I’ve updated the ‘travel’ gadget on the right hand side of this blog, to let anyone interested know about a few forthcoming trips.

Anyway, back on topic, I really fell on my feet with this first foray into posing – Robbie’s talent is extraordinary and the whole experience influenced my first novel hugely. At age 16 he was invited to study in Florence under Pietro Annigoni; since then he’s painted the Queen, Nelson Mandela and accompanied Prince Charles around Africa as travelling artist, and had works displayed in the Vatican amongst other places.

Here are some things we did, available to see at the show in London (click on the images to enlarge them):

Profile
Oil on panel
40.6 x 31 cm (16 x 12 1⁄4 in)
(I absolutely love this painting; as well as being brilliant, hey, why not just paint 29 other famous paintings from history??! Might as well… And the postcards are so cleverly positioned!)

Portrait Study I
Red chalk
30.5 x 23 cm (12 x 9 in)

Yvonne
Pencil
25.4 x 20 cm (10 x 7 7⁄8 in)

Study, Black Veil
Charcoal
45.7 x 33 cm (18 x 13 in)

Figure Study V
Charcoal
25.4 x 46 cm (10 x 18 1⁄8 in)

Blank Canvas I
Watercolour
30.5 x 41 cm (12 x 16 1⁄8 in)

Contraluce
Watercolour
30.5 x 40.6 cm (12 x 16 in)

 

… And here are a few more of my favourite paintings by Robbie Wraith, also to be found at Messums… 

Alexandra
Oil on panel
30.5 x 17.8 cm (12 x 7 in)
(An amazing portrait of a friend of mine; Hello Alex!!)

Artist & Model
Oil on panel
18 x 30.5 cm (7 1⁄8 x 12 in)

Bougainvillea, Rajasthan
Oil on panel
14 x 20.3 cm (5 1⁄2 x 8 in)

Hanging by a Thread
Watercolour
30.5 x 40.6 cm (12 x 16 in)

 Mr. Wraith’s Footsteps
Oil on panel
22.9 x 31 cm (9 x 12 1⁄4 in)

Lungarno Corsini, Florence
Oil on panel
22.9 x 31 cm (9 x 12 1⁄4 in)

Palazzo Corsini Gardens
Oil on panel
20.3 x 25.4 cm (8 x 10 in)

Leica, Bird on a Wire
Oil on panel
20.3 x 25.4 cm (8 x 10 in)

Puppet Shop, Rajasthan
Watercolour
21.6 x 30.5 cm (8 1⁄2 x 12 in)

The Frome below Wareham, Dorset I
Watercolour
21.6 x 31 cm (8 1⁄2 x 12 1⁄4 in)

Twenty-Seven Afternoons
Oil on canvas
76.2 x 122 cm (30 x 48 in)
(This painting formed the majority of the view during much of my own modelling; I love the position of the wrist.)


If you like what you see, drop by the exhibition sometime!

Ophelia…

ERWhittington 6 Comments

…was the theme of my fourth shoot with J H. I seem to have produced some of my favourite images with him and, in general, seem to love any opportunity to agree to throw myself into water and pretend to be a mermaid and/or nymph. These were taken during a leisurely two-hour early-evening shoot in East Sussex last weekend. People say it’s ‘brave’ to get in water for shoots like this, but I think if the worst thing that happens to you in a day’s work is that you get wet/dirty/cold while floating around pretending to be part of a mythical story, and you get beautiful images to show for it, you don’t have much to complain about. J wanted to aim for something reminiscent of Waterhouse and Millais, an admirable aim in my book. The reflections in the water worked so well for a dreamy, painterly feel. For the first few, I have to admit I was imagining myself as a princess searching for a little frog to turn into a prince. When in doubt, my mind reverts to whimsy.

Thanks J – looking forward to the next one! 🙂

How it all began…

ERWhittington 4 Comments

This AMAZING portrait, ‘Profile’, is a little slow in being uploaded. It’s a painting by the wonderful painter Robbie Wraith. I’m very proud to have been the subject of his work for as long as I was, and hope to return to his studio some time in the future.

Longlisted for the Threadneedle Prize 2009, we were sadly robbed by judges who failed to see the genius… The Times obviously did though, as it was the one image they chose to print alongside an article about the prize!

Anyway, look closely – the man is very talented. 🙂

Another one, actually: