Copyright © Lawrence Mann. UK Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn. Large scale portrait painted in Photoshop.
Please be aware that my portraits are painted without political agenda, meaning or bias. The challenge is always correctly painting a recognisable figure that you may judge my skill upon. I have been commissioned in the past to paint political figures. You can find more in my portfolio.
Take note in this piece of the heavy use of party political pageantry and colours. However, the Labour party name is only displayed once in full on Jeremy Corbyn's rosette out of choice as to not overwhelm the viewer with 'full on' messaging. This works to stops your eye from automatically reading the painting top-left to bottom-right like a book page.
The background lighting is sufficiently different to make Mr. Corbyn stand our dispite a high level of background detail still in focus, rather than using tricks such as blurring. I also aimed to make the lighting significantly darker on his face to add a more serious tone to the character as I had placed him mid sentence. A simple smile did not seem to suite him for a portrait. Mr. Corbyn is also quite gestural with the use of his hands but I wanted to keep this from becoming to overstated. I did however decide to go for a slightly 'scruffy' haircut and add in a touch more blonde than is lifelike but that's the beauty of a painted portrait - we can take freedoms that photographers cannot.
If you are politically minded or a follower of Mr. Corbyn than you may of spotted that one member of the crowd (as shown in the close up) is in fact, a younger illustration of himself! A small Easter Egg - as I like to insert into all my works.
