Earlier this year I
was commissioned to do an imaginative portrait of a client’s wife as a
surprise birthday gift. So with a couple of wedding photos as reference and a
few snippets of information on the subject’s life and loves, I came up with
this unusual underwater scene. It has elements of her past, present and hints
of the future all amalgamated into one moment. I created it with pastel pencils on
a board primed with pastel primer. It is my largest piece to date, measuring at
roughly A1 in size. Doing it in pastels means that embarking on something of
this size isn't quite as daunting or as time consuming as it would be to
execute it in oils. When the big day arrived I was relieved and flattered to
know that the subject was pleased and that it moved her to tears when she
looked at it, a satisfying reaction indeed.
I just want to thank all those who have taken time to write
generous comments on my blog over the last year and apologies for not responding to them, its just
because I haven’t worked out how to yet. I will try to soon.
