Discord Nancy 1 & 2This portrait was drawn in charcoal from a photograph and then manipulated digitally, using scanned fabric from the 1970’s as a collage for her hair, which is so ‘busy’ that I decided to keep the rest of the colours quite simple. Fingers crossed there’ll be more of these…
158 Tollington Park London N4 3AD
January-March 2012
South Wing St Pancras Hospital
London NW1 0PE
June 2011
Free Space Gallery
Kentish Town Health Centre, 2 Bartholomew Road, London, NW5 2BX
May 2011
Curator Melissa Hardwick
Click here for more information about the Free Space Gallery
NHS IslingtonTrust Headquarters, 338-346 Goswell Road, London
19th October to 30th December 2010
El Caballo, Vejer de la Frontera, Cádiz, Spain
September 2009
Vejer de la Frontera, Cádiz, Spain
Artist in residence (sign writing and exhibition) 2008
I was out at a concert in a bar in the village one night when I noticed a local photographer checking his camera at the bar; he’d taken some really striking portraits of the band and audience in black and white and I was particularly struck by the dark intensity of one of the shots and knew that I must make a drawn version. The photographer very kindly gave his permission, so I set to work with a charcoal version.
Having fixed the first charcoal layer I added to it to make the background and facial shadows more intense.
I then decided to ‘age’ it and to give it more warmth by adding an acrylic wash in a sepia tone and a layer of crackle glaze before applying stains to highlight the cracks.
It took several weeks before I ran into the subject of the portrait and was able to gain his permission to publish the piece, which I cropped close to emphasize the intimate pose.
I was commissioned to design a sign for a house called La Casa del Sol, which could also be used as an image for business cards by a lovely lady who is a ’Lightworker’. She wanted a representation of the sun, sky and sea in the form of a mandala, painted in bright, positive colours.
Having researched the client’s ideas I made small preliminary sketches, developing the one which stood out as being particularly harmonious into a larger line drawing, which she approved. She also decided on the size and shape of the sign at this point and approved the colour samples I’d made.
I painted the sign on primed marine plywood in gloss paint, using several coats of varnish to make it weather proof and used a simplified version of the sign for the business cards. The client was delighted with the results.