A Most Productive Summer

Well we’re well into Autumn now with the days getting steadily shorter, and our beautiful summer well over. The summer flew with so many projects to get done. I had quite a few portrait commissions which were mostly a real pleasure to do, with a few that proved quite challenging.

I had two group portraits, one with three children and one with a family of four. These are always trickier, as the composition has to be considered, as well as the proportions, particularly when you’re working from different sized photos with different lighting.

They can also prove challenging when you have it 75% completed and then butcher the last subject, forcing you to start from scratch!

It was also a summer of firsts - my first bespectacled subject, and also both my youngest (5 months old) and oldest (96 yrs old) subjects to date too. I had to make three attempts at Sarah, as I assumed (wrongly) that the glasses would be a good reference point, but they proved frustratingly difficult for me! I was very happy with the end result, as she has an naturalness about her that some of the very ‘posed’ portraits lack.

I had two posthumous commissions, one where the reference photo was superb, and one which was very difficult as the photo quality was very poor, so I had to work from two entirely different photos to gather as much detail as possible. The resulting portrait (in the case of the latter) was much softer, which I liked.

October brought another first - my first Landscape commission in oil. After some trepidation I got stuck in and fell in love with oil-paints  all over again. My studio was thick with the heady smell of oil paint, liquin  and white spirits, and I found myself surprised by how thoroughly I enjoyed the subject matter. After working in mono-chrome for pretty much the whole summer, I loved working in colour again. It was like a breath of fresh air.

I have more portrait commissions lined up for Autumn (all proposed Christmas gifts I’m sure!). I will hold my first Art Camp for kids over the Halloween break which is so exciting! I have kept numbers small, all similarly aged, and have plenty of projects planned to keep their interest and focus. We’ll see what they make of it, and if it’s a success, I’ll do camps with more regularity.