Artist Blog

In this blog series, I’m sharing my experience of becoming a contestant on Portrait Artist of the Year Australia Season 2.

This article covers me preparing (or panicking) knowing I was officially cast in the show! If you missed my previous article, jump back to it here – From “Hell No!” to National TV: My Unexpected Casting Call for Portrait Artist of the Year Australia

Once the initial shock of being cast wore off, reality hit me: I actually had to go on national television and draw a complete portrait in just four hours of someone I have just met and be judged in front of the whole country! Oh no!!

Not only that, I only had a few days notice between getting the phone call and filming! My panic to-do list included:

Usually at home, my art time is a luxury. I can step back, ponder, grab a coffee, tweak details over days, or ignore a drawing for a week if it’s giving me grief. But on set? Four hours. No second chances, no “I’ll finish this tomorrow.”

So, I threw myself into full portrait bootcamp to get myself prepared!

4-Hours & My Willing Victims

I set timers on my phone and started practicing a lot!

I practiced celebrities to get used to the time limit. I also coerced my husband, to let me take a million photos so I could practice his beard! I drew my dad, trying to capture every familiar line and expression while the countdown clock ticked down like a time bomb in the corner of my eye.

And let’s be real: not all of my practice runs turned out well.

You see, when you’re rushing against a clock, one wrong angle on an eye or a wrong stroke can transform a loved one into someone you don’t recognise! I had moments of total frustration where I looked at the page and thought, “If I produce something like this on TV I’m going to need a new identity!”. Gahh!!

But the practice paid off. I quickly learnt what I could and couldn’t do in just 4 hours. This helped me prepare what I needed to do on the day.

Practising all the features

The hardest part of preparing for the show was not knowing which celebrity you were going to get. It could be male, female, young, old, bearded, bald, glasses or not. So I had to practice all these features!

As part of this practice I came up with strategies about how I would tackle certain features and speed up elements of my portraiture. For example, wrinkles take a long time to do. So I thought if I got someone older I would likely do a side-profile halving the wrinkles.

The one thing I noticed while watching Season 1, was how much they would focus in on teeth and how quickly they can look “ghoulish”. I know I can execute good teeth but was worried under the time pressure I might make mistakes. I told myself, whatever you do do not make the teeth look ghoulish!! Or better still just leave them out completely!

To challenge myself, I undertook a curly hair, glasses, wrinkles and teeth all in one! Check it below!

The Great Supply Panic

As if the timed practice wasn’t stressful enough, I looked at my supplies and quickly realised I had some shopping to do!

So I had a mad dash to the art store to buy some fresh pastels and new paper. But I was also travelling on a plane so I had to keep my stash somewhat controlled – only packing what I absolutely needed without going over the baggage limit but still having enough to not run out on set! It was tricky to find the middle ground!

We were also told we could prepare our canvas or paper before filming so I pre-gridded my paper before arriving, saving about 20 mins of my 4 hour limit.

The other thing that was a bit of a panic was my clothing! If you know me well, my go-to outfit is a band shirt and pants and I’m usually all in black. However we were not allowed to wear any outfit with branding on it (so band shirts were out!) Oh no!! And they didn’t want just black. I don’t really do colours unless it is my hair, accessories or shoes. So I went on a mad rush to grab a couple of items that were plain enough, still suited my style but added some pops of colour.

Panic framing!

With only a few days to go until filming I needed to frame my self-portrait and ship it down to Sydney. Thankfully my trusty framers at The Framer Gallery, West End were able to help me out quickly. I decided to invest in Art Glass instead of regular glass. I knew that regular glass would be too reflective and there would be so many studio lights it would not look good. I’m so glad I did. Look at how amazing it looked on the screen!

My friends at Pack N Send were amazing too. Given my piece was very fragile they took care of the packaging and shipping without any issues – it thankfully arrived safe and sound and in one piece!

Keeping the Secret of a Lifetime

The absolute hardest part of this entire prep phase? I couldn’t tell a soul!!

I was practically bursting at the seams. How do you explain to friends and family why you’re suddenly obsessively timing yourself drawing for four hours straight every single day? Why you’re buying out the local art shop? Why you look like you haven’t slept in a week?

“Oh, just… practicing!” I’d say, trying to play it cool while internally screaming, I’M GOING TO BE ON TV! 😱

Holding onto the biggest secret of my life while riding an emotional rollercoaster of self-doubt, panic, and excitement was wild. But as I packed my art supplies into my bag, I knew there was no turning back now!

Next stop: Lights, cameras, and artists!