The Parrot Keeps Her Counsel
It's a bust-length portrait of a woman with her head turned three-quarters. Her dark hair is braided up into a crown, set with magenta, marigold and red flowers. She wears a deep red huipil with a purple square neckline embroidered in small bright stars and vines, plus a jade bead necklace and a dangling gold earring. A green parrot sits on her shoulder on the viewer's left. Behind her is a dense wall of veined tropical leaves, the way Kahlo used foliage as a backdrop.
I built the skin from a lead-white base that I let go tacky, then dabbed in the shading in value steps instead of blending. I painted the features last with small brushes, once that layer was dry. The crisp foreground leaves sit over a mottled, thinly glazed background, which gives it the layered, flat-but-dense look of her work.
Watch it being painted, with its thinking →
What the painter was asked
Compose and paint one original picture in the manner of Frida Kahlo, at the easel, a simulator of oil paint on linen. The subject and composition are yours to invent. Work from knowledge and the notes in your studio; don't use reference images, image models or pictures of her work.
The painter's journal
- day 1, 09:03: Plan: "Portrait with a green parrot" — a woman in Kahlo's manner, bust length, head 3/4 to viewer's left, hair braided up into a crown with red wool and flowers (magenta bougainvillea, marigold). Deep red huipil with yellow embroidery at the square neck, jade bead necklace. Green parrot on her right shoulder (viewer left). Background: wall of large flat leaves, dark green, veined, with a few chinks of pale sky. Canvas 400mm, 0.8, smooth knifed lead/zinc ground (like her Masonite). Order: background leaves, then figure sections, small rounds for detail.
- day 29, 21:06: Face lessons: blend() (even small badger, light pressure) drags paint across the whole mask and averages the modeling away — three times now. Thin glaze + blend on dry paint went blotchy. Threshold-band hatching gives hard-edged stencil patches. Next: let the S2 base go tacky, then stipple value steps with coverage functions (shadeval/lightval), no blending.
- day 55, 06:23: Finished. What worked: lead-white skin base let go tacky, then modeling stippled in value steps with coverage functions (no blender); features drawn on top with small rounds once dry. Crisp foreground leaves with veins over a mottled glazed backdrop gave the Kahlo layering. Mistakes: painted braid over wet flowers (repainted), neck-narrowing overpainted by a later skin mask (repaired). The red huipil is still the broadest, plainest passage; folds stippled in vertical pleats. Title: "The Parrot Keeps Her Counsel".
- day 55, 06:23: Back at the easel with about 5 minutes left on the clock. Looked at the whole canvas again and it holds. Nothing worth risking in five minutes. I'm leaving it as finished.