William Clough Valley (1)

The next batch of blogs will focus on my early work. Those of you who have been following my blog may remember that in my first post I mentioned that in 2006, on a visit back to the UK when I was staying with my Mum for a while, I picked up her pastels and did a painting. This is that first painting.

The subject, William Clough Valley in Derbyshire, came from the trusty book of Peak District photos. Although it is quite simplistic in style it was enough of a likeness to the photo to inspire me to take up art again.

By comparing this painting with my latest work (the cat portrait below) you can get an idea of how my style has developed over the last four years.

What’s new pussycat? (62)

Sorry for the long delay between posts – I’ve recently returned from an unexpected trip to the UK. This is my latest painting and my first pet portrait. I decided to do it as a present for my brother-in-law who celebrated a birthday a couple of weeks ago while I was in the UK.

I couldn’t think of anything to buy him so decided to paint him a portrait of his favourite cat, Sweep. Mum claimed she had taken a photo of Sweep some weeks before, so I printed it off and set to work. Sweep has very unusual and pretty markings and I worked hard to get them right. When it was finished I was confident it was a reasonable likeness.

However, when John opened his present he looked bemused and asked whose cat it was.
“It’s Sweep, your cat,” I said, amazed that he couldn’t tell.
“But Sweep doesn’t have any white on his face,” John said.
At that moment, Sweep came into the room and John picked him up so I could see. And he didn’t.

So whose cat had Mum taken the photo of? That remains to be discovered. It certainly looks similar to Sweep … but not similar enough! So my first pet portrait worked at an artistic level but not on the most important level – an exact likeness to the subject.