This weekend, my partner the brilliant painter Jennifer Allnutt will be teaching her methods as well as universal principles of painting the portrait at Bienarté in Brisbane.
Jenny won the highly competitive Lethbridge Gallery 20,000 Small Works competition earlier this year with her symbolic self portrait “A Pagan’s Prayer to the Muses”. This painting was also a finalist in the Beautiful Bizarre Magazine prize.
Jennifer Allnutt A Pagan’s Prayer to the Muses Oil on panel 30x23cm
Jenny has an exceptionally delicate and rich handling of oil paint that digital images simply cannot capture. But you can see in these pictures the subtle use of impasto as well as transparency, the equisite use of colour, and the clear love of the forms of the human face.
Jennifer Allnutt La Belle Oil on ACM panel 12.5 x 18 cm
It is often the case that a photo does not capture what it is like to see the painting, and that is very much the case here - layers and delicate corrections and intuitive developments go into making Jenny’s paintings exceptional, jewel like small works, dense with meaning and beauty.
Jennifer Allnutt Relique Oil on panel 25x25cm
Jenny will be discussing important points about the structure of the skull and face, colour and light and painting process. She is an insightful and gentle teacher too, and will be guiding students through a portrait painting to apply this knowledge.
There is still a couple of spots available for Jenny’s workshop so if you’re in Brisbane and free this weekend, come along
You can see more of her work and connect with Jenny on her Instagram: