Portrait of a Farmer
Study inspired by Kyffin Williams: Hugh Thomas, Portrait of a Farmer.
Hugh Thomas was a farmer near Ro-wen in the Conwy valley. His wife had just died. His doctor asked Kyffin to paint his portrait ‘as some sort of therapy’, wrote Kyffin, ‘in order to give him relief from his loneliness and depression.’ The painter found him ‘trimming a disorderly hedge that appeared to grow out of a broken wall’. This image of dereliction and sadness transfers to the portrait, one of Kyffin’s most poignant. Hugh Thomas sits limply, cap askew, with grey hair, eyebrows and moustache, staring absently at some object below. The colour contrast is sharp, between the collarless white shirt and the spots of reflected sunlight, and the dark cap and waistcoat and the dark blue background. The painting’s desolation was felt immediately it was completed. ‘[Thomas’s] daughter wept’, Kyffin wrote, ‘when she saw what I had done. Wailing echoed around the old kitchen and nothing would console her.’
https://gwallter.com/art/the-portraits-of-kyffin-williams.html
Step by step visual referances - Oil painting with limited colour pallette study inspired by Kyffin Williams: Hugh Thomas, Portrait of a Farmer
Full demonstrations and instructions are given in the classes I tutor in Vale of Glamorgan and Cardiff.
Click here for info about Art Classes
Hugh Thomas was a farmer near Ro-wen in the Conwy valley. His wife had just died. His doctor asked Kyffin to paint his portrait ‘as some sort of therapy’, wrote Kyffin, ‘in order to give him relief from his loneliness and depression.’ The painter found him ‘trimming a disorderly hedge that appeared to grow out of a broken wall’. This image of dereliction and sadness transfers to the portrait, one of Kyffin’s most poignant. Hugh Thomas sits limply, cap askew, with grey hair, eyebrows and moustache, staring absently at some object below. The colour contrast is sharp, between the collarless white shirt and the spots of reflected sunlight, and the dark cap and waistcoat and the dark blue background. The painting’s desolation was felt immediately it was completed. ‘[Thomas’s] daughter wept’, Kyffin wrote, ‘when she saw what I had done. Wailing echoed around the old kitchen and nothing would console her.’
https://gwallter.com/art/the-portraits-of-kyffin-williams.html
Step by step visual referances - Oil painting with limited colour pallette study inspired by Kyffin Williams: Hugh Thomas, Portrait of a Farmer
Full demonstrations and instructions are given in the classes I tutor in Vale of Glamorgan and Cardiff.
Click here for info about Art Classes
