Portraits

Adults and Children

A portrait captures more than a photograph, and I aim to capture my subjects personality in my paintings. I work from sketches and photographs, but I want to breathe some life into it too. I find that portraits work best if I meet the subject, to sketch and take photographs, and have a chat to get to know them a little. I then produce the drawing or painting in my studio from this reference. Alternatively, if you have good clear photographs, these can work brilliantly as reference for paintings, but it still helps a lot if I can meet the person I will be painting. When this isn’t possible, due to distance or circumstances, then I like to hear as much as I can about them, and see more photographs than the one I would be using.

Children at Play

Children are often most relaxed and natural when they are lost in their own world of play or make believe. Digging on the beach, playing in the garden, running about in the sunshine, these are the times that I love to capture, and record for the future. A few photographs taken by myself or the client, and a brief meeting with the children is needed to produce one of these paintings. I am finding increasingly that photographs snapped by parents or grandparents with a smart phone are of fantastic quality and have a spontaneity that leads to great paintings.