matt harvey art

I am a painter and sculptor based in Devon, UK, creating portraits in oils, marble and bronze. After studying Fine Art, specialising in Sculpture at Wimbledon School of Art in London, I spent time making abstract sculpture and painting, and also...

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Portraits in a landscape I can't take too much credit for the composition of this one which was originally photographed on the Cornish coast, one of my favourite places!

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Portrait in acrylic and oils

Portrait in acrylic and oils

posthumous portrait in acrylic and oil (detail)

This is a portrait I did a while ago but have never shown it. Its actually a posthumous portrait from a photo. I found it in a folder titled ‘other portraits’ and not having seen it for a while I thought in the end it is probably something worth revisiting. Its interesting because I was trying to work out how to start a portrait in acrylics and then…

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Taylor Swift portrait in the manner of William Bouguereau

Taylor Swift portrait in the manner of William Bouguereau

Portrait of Taylor Swift in the manner of William Bouguereau. An oil painting demonstration

Hi there I have just painted this portrait of Taylor Swift to demonstrate an aspect of Bouguereau’s technique, working straight into colour from the drawing. I worked on it for around 4 hours including the drawing stage.

Portrait of Taylor Swift – Burnt Umber bistre drawing

Here is a before and after…

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Glazing skin tones like Caravaggio

Glazing skin tones like Caravaggio

I don’t want to seem like I’m making any grand claims but I hope to show in a new video what for me is something like the process of glazing that Caravaggio used. I’m coming to this based on trial and error. How nice it would be to travel back in time to watch him at work! But from looking carefully at his paintings and having a go myself I think this may be fairly close to it. I thought I had…

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Posthumous portrait

I have painted a number of these over the years but haven’t shown any until now. I thought this one worked well with the glazing process.

Posthumous portrait, oil on board

I obviously stuck closely to the photo reference I was sent, and I painted the face using a Raw Umber and Titanium White underpainting, or grisaille and then followed this with glazes and halfpastes of Titanium White, Cadmium…

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Figurative in felt tip I feel I have finally found a way to bring all the elements of my practice together at the same time and from now will be embarking on a new series of work in pen.

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Portrait of a peasant girl after Velazquez

Portrait of a peasant girl after Velazquez

Portrait of a peasant girl by Velazquez

This is the first of a number of Velazquez paintings I would like to try and copy. You can see the video in real time on my patreon channel, see the link here on my website. I was interested in what palette he used and also in his use of the imprimatura and how that was left for some of the middle tones and her clothes. He may have painted this in 1 or 2…

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Portrait of a young girl after Rubens, 2nd glaze!

Portrait of a young girl after Rubens, 2nd glaze!

Hi there, I’ve been looking forward to doing this for a while, and now I’ve completed the films of both the glazes. Here is a photo of before and after the 2nd glaze.

from the 1st to 2nd glaze

So this is the painting again showing the change from the 1st to the 2nd glaze, and then following on from that you can see the 2nd glaze next to the original. The 2nd glaze took about 90 minutes, and you…

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New Caravaggio technique video – underpainting stage Hi there, I've just posted this on youtube. Its going to be one of 2 videos there but 6 in total on patreon where they are also unedited and in real time.

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Portrait of a young girl after Rubens, 1st glaze

Portrait of a young girl after Rubens, 1st glaze

Portrait of a young girl after Rubens 1st glaze from patreon.com/mattharveyart

Here is an image of the 1st glaze as I finished filming. The real time video will be on Patreon but there is a taster on youtube. One amazing thing I discovered doing this glaze was that I only used 3 colours; Titanium White, Vermilion and Yellow Ochre. I feel now that I may have been a bit stubborn in my pursuit of…

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Portrait of a young girl after Rubens, grisaille underpainting

Portrait of a young girl after Rubens, grisaille underpainting

Grisaille of Portrait of a young girl after Rubens

I’ve been finishing the grisaille for this portrait painting copy off camera, which is relaxing! I worked on it for another 2 hours roughly, mainly adding pure black here and there and adjusting the shadows. There were a few areas where I sharpened the drawing, but its a fine balance between trying to work in a way that is possibly similar to…

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Portrait of a young girl by Rubens

Portrait of a young girl by Rubens

I’ve started making a copy of this beautiful portrait painting by Rubens, with a view to learning about his underpainting and glazing technique. I realised its quite similar in subject to the first portrait I added to my youTube channel, so it feels fitting that its also the first on my new Patreon channel. All my real- time videos will be there from now on so please have a look patreon.com/matth…

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Khaleesi, oil on board, 50x60cm

This is a painting I completed a while back. I was sent a photo and worked from that. Khaleesi is an amputee! Glazing really lends itself to painting fur, and this was completed in 3 passes. I didn’t work up from a grisaille but blocked in the colour areas, deepening and enriching the layers with glazes. Below are some of the process photos.

Khaleesi, oil on board, 50x60cm

  Pet portrait – Khaleesi This is a painting I completed a while back. I was sent a photo and worked from that.

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Bistre painting of 3rd arabesque This is another painting of a dancer I finished recently. I am combining my love of glazing with drawing, here starting to draw the line with the brush in a bistre.

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Ballet dancer painting ‘Croise derriere en l’air’ Painted in Raw Umber and white. Raw Umber bistre to start with, and then worked into with some white.

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Painting with Raw Umber and White

Painting with Raw Umber and White

I wanted to paint some more using Raw Umber and Titanium White to paint the underpainting for portraits. Looking back over some earlier work from a couple of years ago inspired me to start using them together again. This is a detail from a recent portrait before the glazing. I wanted to approach it with a more fluid, perhaps bolder (for me) style. The underpainting took a couple of hours and when…

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Glazing a portrait from grisaille to colour

Glazing a portrait from grisaille to colour

Portrait of a young cellist. Grisaille painted in Raw Umber and Titanium White, oil on board

This was a commissioned portrait of a young girl and here are before and after images to show how I developed the underpainting. Grisaille underpainting was completed first and then I added some layers of colour glazes. With this method, rather than mixing the colours on the palette the colours are…

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