Student passes with Distinctions….

We add students to our honours list on our website regularly with students who have passed their course with flying colours. This week was the turn of a drawing and painting diploma student called Ulrike and when I saw her work, I thought we just have to have here here on the blog to show case it. I emailed Ulrike to ask if she would write something about her work and she has kindly write the text below. I hope you enjoy reading it along with viewing her wonderful paintings.

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About the both oil portraits I can say I painted those men I love most O:-): my husband and my father.

Let me start with my husband. The original is just 20 x 20cm. I painted on gessoed MDF and used watersoluble oil colours. I just had photo as basis with quite a lot of light on the right. It’s never easy to get the features of someone you love right. Besides, painting glasses is difficult if you use lots of paint. O;-) I usually use less. The background was the last I changed. First it was too dark. Later I thought about the complementary contrasts and changed it.

For my father I had the real man in front of me for the start, but it was a cloudy day and we sat at a table. So, I started my work with a pencil onto a stretched canvas but was not happy with the result. I took some photos and got back to the studio and added an ochres under painting before going on. I was surprised when I found out that the portrait hadn’t taken a long time. Perhaps it’s because I know him so well O;-)

When I started painting seriously in 2004, I took over my husband’s acrylic paints. I’ve still got some of them because I began reducing my palette soon to just 8 colours (Titanium White, Black, Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow middle, Crimson red, Vermilion Red, Ultramarine Blue, Phthalo Blue) because it’s a good exercise to mix your colours and it’s less expensive. O;-)

About my subjects I must confess I hopped around and I still can’t say that I’m just happy with one kind of subject. Furthermore, I went over to watercolours and pastels and two years ago I made my first steps with oil paint. I always struggle with a new medium, but I never give up.- Ok, I’m not fond of charcoal O;-)

At the moment I’m having a love of still life’s with just a few or just one subject and I like to paint small. Perhaps you’d like to have a look on http://www.ums-arts.com or on my blog http://carpe-mundum.blogspot.com. There you’ll find some more of my work.

Ulrike – Drawing and Painting Diploma (D1)