New Painting - Vicars and Tarts

Having my first work-free week in months this week, I thought I'd bang out a few new paintings - just for the practice. For some time I've been toying with the idea of doing a set of portraits of British stereotypes; the toothy vicar, the beefy butcher, the lusty landlady, the cheery chimneysweep etc. So I kicked off with the vicar, based on these doodles in one of my sketchbooks and with the old phrase 'Vicars and Tarts' in mind:

 

Here's how the painting developed on Day 1:

 

 

 

Overall, I was quite happy with the basic composition but I didn't like the blue of the sky and I really didn't like the vicar's smile. Things would have to change ...

 

 

So, on Day 2, I remodelled his mouth (much happier with it), painted the sky a much nicer blue and added a few marquees and some bunting to give the impression of a fete. And voila, I thought it was done:



Only ... it wasn't. The more I looked at it, the more I (a) didn't like the marquees, (b) didn't like the bunting, and (c) didn't like the shape of the vicar's body. So I painted out the tents and pennants, re-painted the sky, added a finger, and took out part of his body. Then I added a signpost, a sky-borne balloon, some more subtle bunting and a cheeky 'Darwin Fish' lapel badge. Then I realised that I'd done his dog collar wrong so I re-did that too. The final result looks like this:

It's a much better painting as the result. I really enjoyed this one. I stayed in the right frame of mind while painting by watching some classic old British comedies. On Day 1 I watched Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Titfield Thunderbolt and Two Way Stretch. On Day 2 it was The Wrong Arm of the Law, The Naked Truth and Hue and Cry.

Ripping stuff.