Urs + Helen

I said if he made me a corner table for my staircase I would do his portrait.

But, he didn’t want a contemporary portrait: “who wants to see old people?” is what he said. Instead he located a photo from a while back — the late Jurassic I think — in what looks like a friend’s wedding scenario.

Composition-wise they were too far apart, so I photo-shopped a version where they touched shoulders.

As is usual, I made a list of things to pay attention to when painting. I won’t put the whole list here, but it’s instructions like:

• thin moustache with individual hairs showing at edges
• fully opaque black beard on chin
• keep shirt white, with Davy’s grey shadows
• etc.

Sadly, the list isn’t instructions in how to capture the real person, so that when looking at the painting, a friend of his would say, “Yes! That’s really Urs!”.

I wish I could do that. My current thinking is that it involves a kind of caricature of the person, where you emphasize what is recorded in people’s brains when they recognize a face. The painting then triggers that neuron connection — whatever it is — that flips the brain from “unknown random person” to “oh, that’s Melvin in an elf costume”. OK, that’s a stretch, but there is something that triggers recognition, and I haven’t found the secret sauce yet.

The list has some entries that involve a lot of work…

• wispy blond hair
• darker below - fade to dark brown
• need care on edges

because hair and fur are really difficult — involving a lot of strokes in a layered fashion from light to dark — even if it looks like dark to light is the desired order.

I add to that list as I go along, and when the list is complete I force myself to stop. Overworking a painting just makes it worse. Trust me.

Data	Description
Title	Urs + Helen
Artist	Derrick Oswald
Medium	Watercolour on 220g/m2 medium surface cartridge paper
Dimensions (w × h cm)	29.7 × 21.0
Date	2026

original photograph

corner table