PJ Lynch | window painting
28/11/2011 by David Maybury · No Comments
Illustrator PJ Lynch spent last week working in the front window of Hodges Figgis Bookshop in Dublin painting a scene from A Christmas Carol. We caught up with him on Friday, as he was facing the home stretch, to talk about the experience of painting in the window [fishbowl?!].
When did you actually start the painting?
Monday evening. I had to adapt the drawing from the one I had done for the original Christmas Carol for the shape of this picture and so I could put a few other things in. Then when I had the drawing finalised, I needed to project it onto the canvas so had to wait until dark. I got a couple of hours in on Monday evening and got a good days work on Tuesday, because I was worried, that when I was in the shop window I wouldn't be able to get much work done, but it's been overcast so I've been able to work. I spent a few days preparing the image last week, and then Thursday and Friday afternoon was spent making the canvas which I haven't done before, well not for 30 years so that was good. I've been working pretty hard since I've been in the shop, but with a lot of interruptions.
How have you found working in the window and being on display?
It's been weird. With a greater number of people arriving, you sort of feel you should be doing something spectacular, and it's hard to do that, so I've been doing things like working on the candles and then lighting the flames, and then when the kids were there I got them to name things that should be in the Christmas feast, and one of them came up with the idea of a salmon which I hadn't thought of, so I put that in while they were watching. That was kinda fun. Although in the main, I'm a relatively fast painter, it's going really slow so I'm not sure but people seem to be enjoying it.
Has the confinded space been a problem?
Yeah, I can't step back and look at the picture, so the danger is that I'm getting all involved in the detail now, and if you do that, the detail can be the enemy of the overall composition, if you put it in the wrong place or you put too much in, so that would be the kind of thing I would be stepping back from and correcting if I had more space and then when I do go out on the pavement to look, it's kinda hard to see because of the shine on the glass, so it's not ideal working conditions.
Everyone's very appreciative and encouraging which is brilliant because working in my studio I don't get all the affirmation and encouragement, and I really enjoy the number of people passing by, and everybody looks in with a smile, and they pick themselves up and they must enjoy watching someone working on a painting.
Do you think you'll finish on time?
Yeah [gales of laughter] It'll be finished. We've got this deadline so it has to be finished tomorrow [Saturday] It's like with any picture, I could keep working. If my deadline was next week, I could work all week on it, but it wouldn't necessarily make a better picture , but knowing that it has to be finished tomorrow, I'll work towards a finish. I'll try to resolve the bigger compositional spaces, if there's too much detail I'll mute it, and if there's not enough, I'll add more, but I'll bring it up to a finish. If I had a longer deadline, I'd take the time, but one of the reasons I decided to do this was it's good for me to push myself, to see if I could do a picture as big as that in five or six days. We knew there were going to be limitations but that has been part of the fun and the challenge.
Have you enjoyed the challenge?
Yeah the challenge, just knowing that this week I'm going to be painting a picture and finishing it on Saturday, but everyone coming up and saying hello and waving that's just been amazing, and getting to meet the school children that have come down has been great because it's much more informal and more of a chat, then when I visit a school as it's more of a performance, has made it all worth it. Plus I've gotten to work in a bookshop!
