The Finals, Commission Portrait | Sky Portrait Artist of the Year 2025
- Chloe Barnes
- 23 hours ago
- 7 min read
In addition to the final celebrity sitter, finalists are required to make a portrait of a loved one - in this case, I painted my housemate and best friend, Matt. In this blog post and in my desire to teach people about monoprinting, I wanted to discuss this portrait, including the process, challenges and certain decisions I made before painting Brian Cox in the last leg of the competition.
Matt, Housemate
2025
Mixed-media (monotype, watercolour and pastel) on Hahnemühle paper
Image size: 100 x 70 cm
Sheet size: 106 x 78 cm
Between the semi-finals and the finals, Lauren, Katie and I had one week. This week was dedicated to painting a commissioned portrait to present in the finals. I asked my housemate, Matt, whether he'd do me the honours of sitting for me (and subsequently being filmed in the process). Following the end of my long-term relationship in June 2024, which resulted in the self-portrait I produced and used to apply to PAOTY, Matt was there to listen and support me through this time. He has now become one of my best friends. It felt like a full-circle moment, and the chance to paint Matt felt very special to me.
What I thought was a whole week to paint a portrait ended up being just three days. I'm not sure if Lauren and Katie had as tight a schedule, but I had a 10-hour film day on Friday, leaving me the weekend to produce my portrait before the finals on Tuesday. Without the time-lapse camera, I couldn't start painting before my film day, so I was running on a tight schedule. In hindsight, I should have asked whether we could film my day earlier in the week. I had planned to make a monotype, which, unlike the panels I painted during the live competition, required me to use dampened paper that needed to dry under boards after printing (normally for up to a week to prevent the paper from cockling). In anticipation of a hectic week and many late nights, I ended up renting a car to drive between my home and studio. It saved me the one-hour commute, and it provided me with the ease/ flexibility to focus on my commission.
At home, I painted a gouache study of Matt, so I felt pretty confident in the composition and the stages of painting the portrait. Why did I choose gouache? Aside from monoprinting, I've historically used charcoal or gouache to make preparatory sketches. Charcoal is great for mapping tonal values, particularly if there's a dramatic sense of light and dark areas. Gouache, on the other hand, can achieve similar things, but I can also play with colour and incorporate painterly marks that nod towards my monotypes. Additionally, as gouache dries semi-opaque, it allows me to remain loose and expressive with my mark-making, which I enjoy. I had envisioned the final piece to be more complex with composition, texture and background elements. Understanding that I'd also have a lot less time during the finals and it would most likely not fully represent my ability as a monoprinter, I wanted this commission portrait to showcase my skillset and the potential of my medium.
Those who have watched the show can see that, unlike the green gouache sketch, the main colour of the final monotype is blue. I initially wanted to use green as the predominant colour of the portrait to link with plants (something Matt is passionate about) and to imply the nurturing side of our relationship. The only green etching ink I had was viridian green - I tested this colour in a small self-portrait earlier in the week. When I reviewed this portrait again (right before I started Matt's painting), the colour didn't feel right. It lacked some tonal depth and did not provide the emotional response I was looking for. Instead, I went with Prussian Blue - a colour that was familiar, calming and a symbol of strength.
As I work in attempts, my plan for the weekend was to produce three portraits of Matt. Each attempt brings a new amalgamation of mark-making and 'feel', so I wanted to allow myself to choose the most resonant portrait for the finals.
From the competition and my life drawing bursary, I knew that my best depictions of people emerge when I work from life. I can work from photos as a reference, but I wanted to make at least one portrait with Matt sitting for me for multiple hours, and so he did. We brought parts of our couch and a houseplant to my studio to create a similar setting to our living room, and I used a soft box light to mimic the film light at home and provide more contrast/ dimension to Matt's face. After our 10-hour filming day, Matt sat for me from 6:30 pm - 12:30 am. We were running on coffee, adrenaline and takeaway - but the whole experience was a lovely bonding opportunity, and we chatted about how far we've both come since moving into our house share. When it hit 12:30 am, I was about 85% finished with the painted plate and booked an Uber for Matt to head home for the evening. Using a photo, I painted in the remaining surrounding details, including the patterns of the couch, and then I printed the plate at 1:30 am. When I saw the print, I had an instant good gut feeling; I felt like I captured his body language and the subtleties of his facial expression. I did encounter a small technical issue with the etching press blankets*, which created an unexpected pattern on the monotype. I was left umming and ahing as I placed the print under boards, packed up and collapsed on my bed at 3:30 am.
*A small technical note... etching presses use a combination of three different types of wool blankets when printing, all of which are very expensive. Due to the scale of the large press I print on, it has an unconventional linoleum blanket - it's not ideal, but it does a semi-decent job at distributing pressure.
Attempts 2 and 3
I returned to my studio on Saturday and Sunday to make two further attempts, this time using a photo reference I took of Matt. Like the first attempt, I painted the plate in 8 hours before printing. Although I have successfully painted from photos multiple times and it should (in theory) be easier as the sitter can't move, I found that I was getting caught in the details of trying to capture exact likeness and began to lose the emotion/ essence of Matt I was trying to capture.
In my studio, I normally play music and dance around, which helps me to stay loose, expressive and in the right mental state to paint. However, at this point, I was getting increasingly tired and burnt out. I wasn't sleeping very long or well, and I was getting frustrated at seeing the effect this was having on my mark-making, which was only affecting my work even more.
In attempt 2, I experienced an unexpected technical issue; the dense layer of ink, which made up Matt's jumper, began to dry on my plate. This was one object I blocked in first, so by the time I got around to printing, the ink became so stiff that it failed to transfer onto the paper. It actually lifted some of the paper fibres, and the resulting area appeared 'white', not dark blue. As an artist, you can choose to either accept or reject these unpredictabilities, depending on whether you think they add or subtract from your final image. In this case, it threw the tonal balance of the piece as a whole, so I decided to reject it. Was it a bad portrait? No...I didn't hate it, but my depiction of Matt did not embody the feeling I had in mind, so in addition to the technical issue I encountered, the decision was a no-brainer. Like Friday night, I printed the work at 2 am, and got home around 3:30 am to sleep.
Sunday was the day of the London marathon, which cut off my access to the studio until mid-afternoon, which added to the stress for attempt 3. After attempt 2, increasing burnout and less time in my day before returning to my day job on Monday, I decided that for this final attempt, I would work a bit smaller to try to decrease the time required to paint my plate. Conscious that my studio was quite hot and to prevent ink drying on my plate, I added a few drops of plate oil to my ink to increase its viscosity and decrease drying time. I wanted Matt's jumper to appear dark, so I also filled in this area last to ensure as much ink transferred to the paper during the printing process. The monotype did print 'successfully'; however, after all the painting and attempts, it became apparent that the winner was still attempt 1. With the subtleties of Matt's facial features and expression, painting from life allowed me to authentically see, paint and capture him, resulting in a more emotional portrait. Although I was incredibly stressed the whole weekend, I don't regret the following two attempts. It allowed me to feel right in my decision and that I was bringing my very best to the finals.
Finishing tweaks
Confident in my decision, I worked on top of the monotype using watercolour and pastel. One of the things I did add was some green pastel to the plants and Matt's hair. I didn't want any harsh visible lines, so I used a soft brush to diffuse the borders of the pastel, creating a green glow on top of the print. Although I didn't make the monotype in green, I thought this subtle use of colour allowed me to hint at the connection between Matt, plants and nurture.
Producing three monotype attempts pushed me to the absolute mental and physical limits, but it is a piece that I feel showcases my skills as an artist, pushes the boundaries of monoprinting and most importantly, honours mine and Matt's friendship.
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