Days Gone By

First wash of an old man from Dubai.

 Working in my studio this afternoon I grabbed a half finished portrait and decided to try out some of the techniques from my next book on it  just to see what  would happen. I expected to throw my experiment in the bin as I was only painting for fun but I know once eyes have been added it could be quite interesting.

I have no idea why I have this fixation for painting portraits  or small studies of people from all over the world. It has been a long time habit of mine to paint on scraps of paper to  unwind at the end of the day often working from my imagination bringing a familiar character to life.

Sometimes it will be a gentle watercolour wash hinting at a face,sometimes it will be a complete painting. This all started when I lived in Dubai and fell in love with how a fabulous artist painted faces there. Tina Siddiqui to  this day still inspires my portraits as her knowldge and skill at the time was amazing to observe when she demonstrated in art classes.

I was working in pastel mainly back then for portraits, later I moved to painting them in watercolour.

I don't think I will ever outgrow this passion, or addiction as it seems to be and this week could just be the week for painting faces!

Days Gone By