The oversized canvas takes up a good portion of her studio as Meg Constable sits on a stool talking about her latest work in progress. Larger than life, the portrait of a man’s face with haunting eyes stares back at you.
“I was going through a dry spell with no painting ideas, when I started looking at old photos online. His came up and I knew I had to paint him, though I never thought I’d be painting a convict,” she said.
The original 1902 black and white mug shot was taken in North Shields, England and the accused, named Alfred, holds a placard. “I think he stole some chickens,” she said. Pictured here wearing a soulful expression, he appears contrite and more personable in her version of him. “I wonder what he’d think if he knew his portrait was being painted here in 2024,” she laughed.
It’s always the eyes of her subjects that intrigue her. “I really like direct eye contact,” she said, “It feels like they’re still there.”
Mostly she works from live models, either painting in oils or doing charcoal drawings. Her canvases run large, typically 5 feet by 4 feet. “The bigger the better,” she said.
Meg defines her style as slightly abstracted realism and seeks to simplify shapes. Diving right into her work, she draws her subject directly onto the canvas with no preliminary sketching. First she’ll make a mark on the canvas for the head, then brush in the rest of the face using paint thinned in turpentine. Multiple thin layers of paint and glazes are applied to achieve her end result.
She generally works on two paintings at the same time. “I like taking a break and then re-looking at them,” she said.
Her palette is limited, consisting of Payne’s grey, vermillion, yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, raw umber, burnt umber, Italian green umber and some white. As for brushes, she never buys expensive ones because, “I kill them,” she said. She goes through large brushes quickly and buys them at the hardware store, but also paints with extra-long filberts.
In addition, Meg works in clay and has sculpted the heads of her three children, among other subjects. “I have about 20 clay heads sitting on a shelf in my dining room,” she said.
She also enjoys painting plein air and her landscapes of Sheard’s Mill Covered Bridge were done on site. Using expressive brush strokes, the warm reds of the bridge are reflected in the cool blue-gray waters of Tohickon Creek.
Her favorite spot to paint, however, is her studio. She has been artist in residence at 7th Street Studios in Perkasie, PA for four years where, almost every Sunday, she draws and paints from live models. She is also a regular at the life drawing sessions held at the home of artists George and Emily Thompson.
When asked why most of her subjects tend to be men, she answered, “It’s hard for me to do anything pretty.” She’s more comfortable painting rugged male faces, many of which are bearded.
She has, however, painted her daughter, Peighton, which appeared in Pennsylvania’s Art of the State exhibit in 2021 at the State Museum in Harrisburg. The painting, which sold, features a full body portrait of Peighton at Ocean City, NJ. Her teenage scowl is perfectly captured amidst the muted background of the amusement rides. The woman who bought the painting said her teenage daughter often wears the same expression and could relate.
Meg's drawings have also won several awards at Philadelphia Sketch Club’s juried exhibitions of Works on Paper. She was also in their 158th Annual Exhibition of Small Oil Paintings in 2022.
No relation to British artist John Constable, she did have a great grandmother who painted. “I have her painting of daisies on my wall and it’s quite different from my style,” she said.
Painting and drawing since she was a child, Meg was born in North Wales, PA, and attended North Penn High School.
Her father was a carpenter who let Meg paint on large boards he had lying around the barn. There were only a few cans of paint available, and Meg used big house painting brushes to cover them. “I was surprised that 30 years later, my father had saved all the boards I had painted,” she said.
Meg later attended Tyler School of Art and graduated in 1995 with a bachelor of fine arts degree. Her experience there was rewarding and said, “I definitely give Tyler two thumbs up.”
At Tyler she took figure drawing from professors Stanley Whitney and Susan Moore, who were both influential in her art career. “It was amazing there,” she said. “We could bring large rolls of paper, tack them to the wall and work on full sized life drawings.”
There she also worked on large canvases and remembers putting hinges on the stretcher bars of her paintings so she could fold them in half for easier transport.
She kept in touch with Susan Moore after she graduated and when Meg was about to marry and move to the suburbs, Susan emphatically told her: “DON’T STOP DRAWING!”
Meg has taken her advice to heart throughout the years. “I tried painting as much as I could (sometimes with my kids), and took a bunch of workshops. It was like playing hooky,” she said. “And life drawing sessions everywhere I could…in Philly, Norristown…I finally started to enter work in exhibitions in 2017.”
But it wasn’t until the pandemic and lockdown that she began painting full-time, inspired by the work of old masters online. “Just looking at their work and thinking about paint and color and form—it was so amazing just to sit and study,” she said. She attempted to match the neutral colors they used and created a whole series of “afters,” or paintings after other artists. These include works by Diego Velasquez, Antonio Mancini, Ilya Repin, Joaquín Sorolla, Ferdinand Hodler and Andrew Zorn. The turn-of-the-century Russian faces Meg has depicted are particularly contemplative and soulful.
When she’s not making art, Meg works as a day-of wedding coordinator and plans corporate events at the Joseph Ambler Inn in North Wales. She has been there 25 years making sure everything is pulled off seamlessly during the day of the event. The job can be stressful and requires strong organizational skills. “That’s why I love coming to the studio where it’s the opposite of what I do on the job,” she said.
Always on the lookout for new subjects, she has even painted some of the kitchen staff at the inn. “Now others want theirs done next,” she said. She also does commissioned work which challenges her but still brings enjoyment.
Taryn Day, artist and owner of 7th Street Studios, said of Meg's work, “I love the way she works in an all-or-nothing way, diving in to work with her full attention and then leaving it in a state of discovery.” She called Meg’s portraits serious and powerful, adding, “She is a very considerate person to have around, very talented but treats everyone the same, beginners to experienced artists.”
In many ways she’s still that girl in the barn having fun with her dad’s brushes and a few cans of paint. Though her current subjects are more complex as her skills have advanced, painting has and always will be her happy place.
Meg’s paintings can be viewed on her website: megconstable.com and at 7th Street Studios in Perkasie. She is also on Instagram @megconstable_studio.
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Michele Malinchak is a freelance writer who has a degree in art and enjoys oil painting.