Agincourt Painting Diary - page 2

Graham Turner continues with his guide through the creation of his big oil painting of the Battle of Agincourt.

CLICK HERE to return to the previous progress page.

(Above) More colour added. As the colours and tones are established, it is easier to visualise the figures in three dimensions, rather than just flat line drawings. I aim to keep that in mind as I paint, and it helps to have a few props around to remind me that everything has a back, a side that you can't see, but which is crucial to what is visible. For example, the helmets curve away from you, they are not an outlined shape.

(Above) Starting to get some real form into the painting now. I have decided to make the central figure on the left Jean de Croy, so have changed his flowing surcoat from blue to white (I love the ornately dagged sleeves on this, a feature that appears in several French manuscript illuminations of the period). I am surprised there is still a big block of white canvas still uncovered - I wasn't sure what colour I wanted this figure to be, or whether light or dark.

(Above) Finally decided to make that figure a muted red and at last all the canvas is covered! Also started to indicate some of the banners, which proved very difficult to decide who to portray. I spent ages reading books and poring over my notes, trying to decide who could have been where and at what time!

(Above) The central English man at arms now has a St George's cross on his surcoat. I was unsure as to whether or not I wanted to have him identified as a particlar individual with his personal heraldry, but decided that it was better to have him representative of the many who took part in the battle. Henry V now also has a visor on his great bascinet. He had painful personal experience of the danger of not wearing a visor at the battle of Shrewsbury, when he was badly wounded in the face by an arrow, and the eyewitness description of him at Agincourt made it pretty clear this is how I should depict him; '...he had brought to him his helmet which was a very fine bascinet with a visor on which was a very rich crown of gold encircling it like an imperial crown.' However, as Henry has realised he is not under threat from archers, I have shown the visor raised, allowing better visability and ventilation, and giving me the opportunity to paint his likeness.

(Above) This stage of any painting takes the longest. The initial painting with a big brush gets things moving fast, but towards the end refining it and adding the details seems to take forever. Mail is particulary time consuming, especially when it's in the foreground, and in a painting of this size, background figures who would usually be just indicated by a few brush strokes are big enough to warrant a fair amount of detail too. The bodies in the central area also take a long time, because although you can only see glimpses of them, I need to draw them fully to ensure they fit in. The sketch on the right is one of several working drawings produced for the painting.

...and here's the finished painting, several months after it was started, months that have seen me totally absorbed and at times not really able to focus on much else. Now I can perhaps get my life back..... although there's always the next project!

For a full description of the painting and what is shown, along with detail images CLICK HERE

Prints are available, either on paper or canvas - CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

ORIGINAL PAINTING - Graham Turner's original oil painting is available to purchase - CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

DETAIL IMAGES

A painting of this size and complexity cannot really be fully appreciated viewed as a small image on a computer monitor, so to give a better indication of the amount of detail in the painting, CLICK HERE to see a selection of larger close up images taken from it.

Each image is accompanied by details of what is shown, revealing some of the immense amount of research behind this painting.