For the love of wisdom : The sad queen

Acrylic on canvas board 14" x 11"

By the way, I have posted the third and final framed landscape on my Stalybridge paintings blog at the special price of £115. Just email me if you are interested.

Stockport Art Guild 91st annual show

Today was the opening of the Stockport Art Guild annual show at Stockport Art Gallery and some great work is on display there. I was honoured to have 3 of my paintings accepted for the show and even more honoured to win a prestigious "Jack Lees certificate of Merit" for one of them. So if you are in the area, give it a whirl. It's kind of nice to support the north of England in the Arts as we are ever seen as the poor little sister to big brother London, but watch out London, we are fighters up here!!

For the love of wisdom: the benevolent king (re-work)

Acrylic on canvas panel 12" x 12"

Our faces are not absolutely symmetrical and yet portrait painters tend to make them so (I don't except myself). Here I wanted to exaggerate the difference a little without losing the emotional response. A lot of the work of other painters that I enjoy uses figures as metaphors (David Brayne? Jeannie Tomanek? )so it is the message which is emotional but I have a tendency to want to portray the figures themselves as having an emotional dimension. On another note entirely I visited a small Yorkshire town yesterday and found in a second hand bookshop an account of an interview with Ron Kitaj. His favourite painting is Cezanne's 'Bathers' which he claims was done absolutely from the painter's imagination in his studio. This painting of the king started from a found image of someone I didn't know but morphed into something else completely. And yet I feel I now know this man. Strange. ps. Since posting this I have reworked it and reposted. First 3 comments refer to the first version.

Portrait of Dan with iPod

Charcoal on cartridge paper 20" x 15"

Got back from Ethiopia Sunday. Although the work is totally enjoyable and satisfying, I must admit is was wonderful to get back to drawing last night. The model was a serious, music loving young man called Dan. Today I'm back with the paints after about a three week absence and I feel like a complete novice.

One more framed painting for sale....

on my Stalybridge paintings blog. I leave for Ethiopia tomorrow - back on 23rd October. I should be able to send and receive emails whilst I am there as usual. Thanks for looking!

Stalybridge blog and travelling

Have just put a new entry and a painting for sale on my Stalybridge paintings blog. I'm travelling soon - off to Ethiopia again for a couple of weeks. Not sure I will have time to post anything here until end of October now. Blogger is banned in Ethiopia but I should be able to check my emails.