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October 06, 2008
The inevitability of Twins
Many years ago, in a different studio, in a different town, I lived next door to identical twins, Tom and Alex [or was it Alex and Tom].
It’s never easy living next to identical twins, the scope for faux pas is almost limitless. However in this case things were made a good deal easier by one of them sporting his hair in long dreadlocks and the other a crew cut. Luckily for me the longer named twin had the longer hair. So Tom was Tom and Alex was Alex and all was well in the world.
Until Alex cut his dreadlocks and they both had a No.1. Ha ha, hee hee and ho ho ho.
At the time I was beginning to start to paint portraits and what better challenge thought I than to paint identical twins and see if their mother could tell which is which.
I drew them and measured them and photographed them and began to discern the differences. Alex was slightly rounder in the face than Tom.
Tom and Alex Parkinson, charcoal on paper, 520mm x 780mm
During the sittings the boys were fascinated to know what the differences were. It wasn’t easy to have them both sitting at the same time as the pose required that they stare each other in the face for hours on end. Never easy with a sibling, still less I suspect with your twin.
Tom and Alex Parkinson, oil on panel, 620mm x 1220mm
On their own they were competitive. I was using up some Prussian Blue on a background wash which Alex particularly liked. “I’ll give you a fiver” he said, talking about the background for his brother’s half of the panel, “if you paint his pink.”
You can still just see it written across the top of the painting.
Posted by john at October 6, 2008 07:21 PM