Artist who teaches on face value

AN award-winning artist will hold a two-day oil portrait masterclass to teach methods of observing colours and tones.

Mark Draisey, 62, a self- taught portrait artist based in Watlington, will guide his first group class at the town hall on April 26 and 27.

He said that the class is suitable for intermediate artists and will instruct them in painting techniques that he picked up from studying the old masters.

He said: “I’ll be teaching how to look at your subject matter, whether it’s a live sitter or a photograph, and really look at it with fresh eyes and not predict the colours that you think you’re going to see, so you end up with a far more vibrant and realistic portrait.

“Also, just general painting techniques really that I picked up by studying the old masters and I will be passing some of those on.

“There’s a part of our brain that tells us that grass is green, skies are blue, trees are brown and that white skin is pinky-yellow. That’s not true in any respect — skies can be all sorts of different colours, grass can be all sorts of different colours and likewise we tend to anticipate the colours that we think we’re going to see when we look at a face.

“My main aim is to educate the people taking part to switch that part of the brain off and look at a face as though they’ve never seen one before. I will also be introducing them

to some colours that they might not consider suitable for a portrait — greens, purples, blues, greys.

“It’s really taking people back to square one as far as how they look at and observe the colours that they see in front of them.”

An illustrator by trade, Mr Draisey was formerly a caricaturist and puppet sculptor on Central TV’s Spitting Image.

However, he decided in 2016 to redirect his focus on oil paintings to “renew his passion” for creating fine art.

He was invited in 2023 to participate in the third series of BBC’s Extraordinary Portraits hosted by Bill Bailey, which focused on key workers in the NHS.

In 2020, he was nominated for the BP Portrait Award which receives thousands of entries from around the world to be selected for display in the National Portrait Gallery.

His portrait of a teenage baker, Kitty Tate, from Watlington, was awarded third place at the exhibition.

He said that this portrait is among his favourite pieces, although the covid restrictions meant no one was able to see it displayed in the gallery.

Mr Draisey said: “I painted her when she first opened her bakery in Watlington and that painting got selected for the BP Portrait Award.

“That particular year they had 6,000 entries of which only 42 were selected for the exhibition. It was the first time I had ever got into that exhibition.

When he is not working on commissions, he likes to practise techniques by painting self- portraits, or by finding villagers in Watlington whose faces he finds “interesting”.

Mr Draisey said: “If I’m not working on a commission I still need to paint. So, I will just pluck someone out of the street who interests me and ask them if I can paint them.

“A lot of them I’ve never spoken to before but if they’ve got an interesting face, then I want to paint it.

“I work entirely from photos but only mine because I’m very specific about lighting, composition, the way they’re posed, so that is all part of the creative process I undertake.”

He said that he discovered his affinity for art at an early age, when he found he could teach himself the techniques of the old masters by simply looking at

the painting. He said: “I’ve got this weird bit in my brain which allows me, when I look at a painting, not only can I see the direction of all the brushstrokes but I can also work out the order in which they were painted.

“It’s just something I was born with, you can’t do it with all paintings, if you look at a Leonardo, for example, they’re very flat, you can’t see any of the brush strokes because of the technique he used.”

He added: “When you’re painting, you’re very isolated, it’s one of the loneliest profes- sions, so it’s nice to be able to talk about your art and pass on tips and tricks of the trade to willing listeners.”

For more information about the masterclass, visit markdraisey.com/masterclasses