Medieval Portraits

Each one of these portraits starts life as a piece of hardboard. There is no plan to the size or shape, I just let the circular saw do it's work. They are then covered in whatever types of paint I can lay my hands on in the rough shape of a face and then the features are sketched out with gel pens.

An ink wash is then added and allowed to harden.

I then attack the whole thing with Stanley Knife blades, slicing and scraping away until  the original face has long gone and a ghost like impression appears.

I then set to work again building up the textures and tones until I arrive at what I call a Medieval Face. Something that comes from the depths of the wood that has been there all the time, it just needed discovering.