National Portrait Gallery One of the “must see” exhibitions of 2015 has to be the John Singer Sargent, Portraits of Artists and Friends. It’s on show at the National Portrait Gallery, London. It is accompanied by a terrific new book by Richard Ormond. He is the co-author (with Elaine Kilmurray) of the Complete Paintings of […]
Category: Figurative Drawing
Portraits
Time of Reflection At the start of 2011 I was approaching the grand age of 50. It was a period of my life where I began to take a longer, more reflective and honest look at my life on a number of different levels, personally, spiritually, my family life and my career as an artist. […]
Portraits in Charcoal
Drawing Portraits in Charcoal can be a very rewarding experience, especially when you are working from life. When I have a portrait commission, especially if it’s a child, I find it helpful to do a quick study in one of my moleskine sketchbooks. Usually children these days don’t like to sit still for even just […]
Sargent Studies – A Daily Sketch
For the last few weeks I have been continuing with my daily discipline of a sketch a day. I try to do this for 20 minutes to an hour, 5 or 6 days a week, usually in my Moleskine Sketchbook. Gouache Painting Most of my studies have been made with a charcoal pencil. However today […]
Sargent – A Daily sketch
Every so often I like to set some kind of painting/drawing discipline to keep on top of my game. John Singer Sargent is one of the artists whose work I love to study. Good habits are hard to form and easy to break. Sadly the converse of that statement is also true! I tend to […]
The Response
Every so often I decide to paint a subject which is different to my usual repertoire. Sometimes it can be very personal. “The Response” is a recent painting that has a number of meanings but rather than me explain them all in this post, I’ve decided to leave the viewer to have their own thoughts […]
The Kiss
I’d heard the Rodin’s famous sculpture, The Kiss is currently on display in Edinburgh. Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities. I’ve been painting its stunning architecture and famous streets for over 20 years, producing over a dozen limited edition prints of Auld Reekie. Last week I was dropping off some paintings at a gallery nearby so […]
Susan in St Mark’s Church
In September 2012 Susan and I travelled to Venice to work on a number of painting projects, one of which was this oil painting of Susan in the Basilica San Marco. On the 7th April 1985 Susan experienced a dramatic conversion to Christianity on her own as she cried out to God in the famous […]
Rijksmuseum
On a recent trip to Amsterdam I decided to visit the newly re-opened Rijksmuseum dedicated to Dutch Art and the history of the Netherlands. I’d read a very positive review of the museum by art critic and TV presenter Waldemar Januszczak which encouraged me to brave the crowds and queues to pay homage to Rembrandt, […]
Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss
In my previous post I described how I went to the National Gallery in Edinburgh to see Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss. It’s a famous marble sculpture. I made a couple of sketchbook studies in charcoal then an A6 watercolour. After analysing my studies, I decided to do a 14″ x 10″ watercolour of The Kiss […]