City Church Portraits It’s a real privilege to paint a Portrait of a Friend. In 2014 I painted a series of portraits of City Church members. These were to hang in the atrium of the CastleGate. One of the portraits was of a gentleman called Leon Le Dune. He sadly passed away earlier this month. […]
Category: Portraits
60th Birthday
Grey Street Painting This week saw me reach another landmark birthday, I’m now 60 years old. I have to say that I’m grateful to God that I’ve been blessed with 60 years to date. However, compared to my 60th, my 50th birthday was more of a year of contemplation and challenge. In 2011 when I […]
Rosso
Artist Support Pledge I’ve recently acquired my third original painting through the Artist Support Pledge. I spent a while waiting for the right painting to turn up before seeing the work of an Italian artist who goes under the name of Rosso Art. Rosso had posted an original painting on her Instagram account rossoartist which was […]
Dog Portrait Commissions
Dog Portraits I was recently commissioned to paint a portrait of a clients pet dog. It was a surprise 50th birthday present. They supplied me with several photographs for me to work from. All I had to do was make the most suitable selection. Needless to say, the recipient was delighted with the painting of […]
Prison Week
St Nicholas Cathedral Exhibition Prison Week As part of Prison Week, there is an exhibition of prisoners work on display at St Nicholas Cathedral in Newcastle. Since August I’ve been teaching some of the prisoners from a north east prison how to draw portraits. Most of them have had little or no experience of any […]
World Encephalitis Day
The 22nd February 2017 is World Encephalitis Day, the global awareness day for people who are directly or indirectly affected by encephalitis. I had no idea what encephalitis was until Sarah was diagnosed. I’d watched Sarah grow up from being a little girl for over 20 years so I was deeply shocked to hear of her illness. […]
Painting on Gold Leaf
I first started painting on gold leaf in 2009 when I was working on a large painting commission. As part of the project I worked on some small boards about 19″x 15″ which were primed with gold leaf. I used these to produce some experimental paintings, one of which was a portrait of my wife Susan. […]
Time Lapse Portrait Sketches
Portrait Drawing There are no short cuts to achieving sound drawing skills. Regular practise at drawing from observation will pay off in most visual disciplines in art, whether it’s painting, sculpture, graphic design or even photography. Before working on a commission or a painting for exhibition I will often warm up for 10 to 20 minutes […]
Portrait Sketches
As I mentioned in my previous post, I will often start my painting days with a warming up exercise. My usual practise is one or two portrait sketches of John Singer Sargent portraits in my Moleskine sketchbook. Last year I did a few time lapse videos of these portrait sketches to show the process of […]
Time Lapse Sketches
When I have a painting day ahead of me I like to spend a few moments warming up in my Moleskine Sketchbook. The link on this post to Time Lapse Sketches shows my process. Usually, I’ll have a quick flick through my John Singer Sargent books and choose a portrait to draw. I’ll sharpen up […]