ELLIE GRACE

FINE ARTIST

I was asked by fine artist, Ellie Grace, if I could capture some specific reference images for an upcoming work of art she was producing. I thought this would be an amazing point of networking, whilst also giving me an extra project to keep me busy during the Covid-19 lockdown, so I agreed.

Ellie mainly focuses on portraits of people, and for this particular project wanted images that showed faces close up with materials to frame the face. This allowed for a mix of textures she would be able to create using a mix of medium.

These were my responses to the specification she gave to me. I used naturally occurring sunlight to ensure her eyes would be highlighted, and used an uncovered duvet for the material around her face. This is the work she produced from these images!

The test drawing before her final piece, shown above, was a pencil drawing focusing on the left eye. This prepared her for the final piece, for which she looked into the work of Nikos Gyftakis, and created this piece of work. It’s an Oil Pastel piece on Black A2 card within her portfolio.

I wish I could’ve been there in person to admire and photograph this piece myself, however quarantine hasn’t allowed for me to yet, so the featured images aren’t the greatest quality, but even so. I’m so proud of the work she has created, I feel these are phenomenal pieces of work.

I talked to her afterwards about how creating this work made her feel, and she said:

‘I found myself with no creative motivation whatsoever during this quarantine as I just couldn’t focus on a single piece of my work. This project helped me get back into the flow of things as I was able to control how I wanted the reference to be and work on some experimental processes because of this!’

This was such an interesting collaboration to do it left me so excited to see the work she had produced from it, and now I’ve also built a relationship with her as a potential network connection for the future too.