Where Better to Start

When I started painting I decided I would start with portraiture. Although many artists find portraits difficult and find it hard to paint people’s faces, I decided that this was a true sign of whether I would be any good at art or not.

Whatever I do in life I like to express myself through it whether it was playing football, writing or oil painting.

I am not the type of person who could do art as a genial hobby. If I do art, I want to be good enough at it in order to express my creativity as fully as I can. I wouldn’t play percussion if I couldn’t keep a beat.

Initially I painted myself and my wife Emma. I decided that if I could not get a likeness of my wife or myself then I was not going to be a portrait painter, at least.

When I was sketching out the painting of me, “Himself” below, I was struck by how much my skull shape was the same as my grandfather Harry. I had not noticed any physical similarities between my maternal grandfather and I before, only to realize we had the same skull!!

I suddenly realized the anatomy of my and my wife’s head and face.

We don’t really look too deeply at people, probably as it is viewed as rude or intrusive. You can, however, really find out about a person from painting their face and head.

You can see their inner self to a large extent and their personality expressed in the lines of their face.

I unearthed an inner attractiveness in some that I had not seen originally.

I now feel I know all the models I have painted much more than I did before.

I also have a strange attachment to those I have painted.  I think this is not only due to getting to know them via their features but also because, as was the case with Renaissance art, an artist has to love a work into being if it is to resemble the person and in resembling the person it has to recreate their essence, illuminate their soul.

 

Himself

Faith

Please

 

 

Still Alive

I started painting pretty much from scratch.

I did not have any O levels or A levels in Art. My Art teacher did not like me much and wasn’t very encouraging.

I had done wood etchings as a child by my own devices, carving rabbits.

My mother liked drawing and her and my sister drew fashion models.

My artistic bent was expressed mainly through photography and a love of film and cinematography which seemed to combine painting composition and photographic. I also loved the movement of film.

I think my paintings all have movement, even they are still life paintings, see below.

I want my paintings to have this sense movement, vibrancy, life.

I often look at wonderfully detailed and executed Fine Art and find it strangely dead and funereal, destined for a resting home in a museum.

I always want my work to be alive.

 

The Smudged Window

 

Hiding in Plain Sight