Over the last 12 months I have been working on a painting project for City Church Newcastle. Members meet at the Castlegate, Melbourne Street, Newcastle. I’m painting Portraits in Oils.
The Castlegate
In the summer of 2013 I was approached by Ed Morrow who manages the CastleGate. He was asking my advice about what kind of artwork would reflect the vision of the church.
My wife Susan and I have been members of City Church since it’s beginning. Our vision is that we will be a church of thousands, a community full of people from every nation. My suggestion was that I painted a number of portraits of church members of different ages, races and stages of life. Members that would represent the church family.
I started the first one in October 2013 with several sittings of Adrian Smith. Other members included the late Leon Le Dune seen above in one of his sittings. The Portraits have been painted in oils on aluminium panels for Health and Safety reasons. They have to be prepared first with emery paper then primed using an Etch Primer. I then paint several coats of an oil paint primer before tinting each panel to a neutral tint. It’s at that point I can begin a series of sittings, painting from life.
Sight Size
I have used photography as an aid to make sure that the proportions are correct. With the exception of the children I’ve painted 90% of the painting work is from life, painting from observation. I’ve used the Sight Size method for observation.
Most of my 30 year professional career has been spent painting landscapes, cityscapes and seascapes in watercolour. Subjects include the North East, Scotland, UK, Italy and the Middle East. I’ve learned many years ago when to finish a painting in watercolour, the danger of overworking it being a real possibility. Once you overdo it, there’s no going back with watercolour!
With oil painting, it’s quite different. You can always see little details to fiddle on with to keep trying to improve the portrait. If you make a mistake, you simply correct it. I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to painting so I needed a justifiable reason to stop each portrait. All christians are a work in progress, none of us will achieve perfection until the day we are united with Jesus Christ. I’ve deliberately decided to have some of the portraits “unfinished”. This is a random choice and not any reflection on anyone’s spirituality!
The plan at this point in time is to have a launch later on in the autumn when the portraits will be hung in the atrium to coincide with a “Vision Sunday” for the church.