The student visited the National Portrait Gallery to get inspiration for a portrait painting assignment. They observed and drew sketches of four paintings they admired in the BP Portrait Award exhibition. They focused their study on Toby Mulligan's portrait of his daughter titled "About Time". They tried to replicate Mulligan's limited color palette and compositional style in their own practice portraits. While they found the self-portrait project challenging, drawing from life and copying Mulligan's techniques improved their skills and confidence in portrait painting.

1. Summer Portrait Assignment

2. Your visit to
The National
Portrait Gallery
To get inspiration for my
portrait I visited the BP
Portrait Award in the National
Portrait Gallery.
I did these four observation
drawings of my favourite
paintings within the exhibition
I used a variation of fine liner
and pencil to quickly sketch the
paintings while in the museum.
Geoffrey Beasley
Jason brooks
Javier Palacios Rodriguez

3. A study of a portrait painting
Toby Mulligan
• Toby Mulligan’s Portrait of his daughter,
'About Time, was selected for The BP
portrait award 2012. It was hanging in the
National Portrait Gallery in London
throughout the summer and is currently in
the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.
• The portrait is of the artist’s daughter,
Anais, who lives in France with her mother.
The portrait was made in the morning on the
last day of her recent visit to her father
in the UK. Despite having attempted the
subject previously in oils, this small
acrylic painting seemed more successful to
Mulligan.
• Oil on canvas -495 x 400 mm
• Painted in 2012
• I really like how he has used green and
much stronger colours than a normal
brown/peach coloured skin tone.
• This is my study of the painting.

4. Practical study
This is the painting which inspired me for my
portraits. I tried to use the same colour
palette and the same composition of the
painting.

5. Practical study
Finished portraits

6. Summarise your study of
the work of others - portrait painting
Toby mulligan has used a very limited palette
to create this painting. Although this girl
looks young, he has painted her in a mature,
sophisticated way.
I like the way her eyes are focusing at
something as opposed blank so it makes it look
much more real rather than a frozen, lifeless
picture. The girl looks like she's thinking,
or almost wondering. The slight frown in her
expression could support this. This also makes
the painting more intense.
Mulligan has used colours within the face to
show the contours and the shadows,
exaggerating them to create more dimension
within the portrait.
He has used hues of the same colour palette in
the face as in the background, this has been
done to emphasise the colours on the face.
I think Mulligan has used colours to show the
characteristics and energy of the sitter,
rather than a direct likeness in the same way
it would be used in German expressionism.

7. Your opinion and an evaluation of the
self-portrait project
I found this project really interesting however it was challenging. I enjoyed
visiting the Portrait Gallery and drawing quick sketches of the paintings. Although
this was hard to do I felt it made me a lot more confident when it came to drawing
myself for my own portraits.
When I found Toby Mulligan’s work on the National Portrait Gallery website I was
instantly drawn to the colours and the intensity of the women's faces which he had
drawn. I really enjoyed working in his style and creating two artist copies. When it
came to creating my own portrait I did a lot of preliminary studies of my self from
pictures to experiment with angles and to practise drawing my own features. I wanted
to use poses which would be suitable to Toby Mulligans paintings therefore I chose
one directly face on, and one slightly turned. I feel these have worked well. When it
came to painting my face I found it challenging focus on the shading and the shape of
my face as I had never painted directly from a mirror before. This is something I
found hard, however as I had already done an artist copy of Mulligans, I found it
useful to use his techniques of shading and adding dimension to the face.
I felt I used a thinner consistency of paint than Mulligan, however this was my
preference as that is the style of painting I prefer. I tried to use the same colour
palette as the picture I took most of my inspiration from, and I feel I have
succeeded in that. Overall I am really pleased with the result of my self-portrait,
although it was challenging I feel I has given me a lot more confidence in drawing
and painting in other artists styles.