Portrait collected from Trinity Wharf

 Alex's portrait collected from Trinity Wharf in Docklands. An interesting part of London unfamiliar to me, I bought an excellent guide to London's Hidden Walks at the train station coming in to town, and after collection I walked back to Tower Gateway via a number of historic and unspoilt pubs on the river.  
Thanks to Douglas McLeod and Lacewing for their excellent framing services

Portrait of Alex

The BP Portrait award judges liked this painting enough to choose it for the final 500 considered for the exhibition... unfortunately it wasn't selected for the final show.
 I titled it January, after the month in which it was painted and the wintry palette, I thought it spoke of our first year with our first child,  Bella.  I painted a number of portraits through the previous year, none of which were successful, and so this was my last chance with the deadline approaching, Though not perfect i thought it caught a mood, and a likeness. 

A couple of studies of the ugford clump

 Oil on board studies both from the south , taken from the same sketch

Ugford Clump acrylic sketch from earlier drawing

Two stages of an acrylic sketch on paper

Charcoal and graphite studies

Developing some landscape themes, early days

My designs for handpainted plates

 Finding time after work to try some of my own hand painted designs for plates and bowls, two designs in both green and blue, the design developed to be simple enough to replicate,and to show the character of the painted brush mark 

Head study

A two hour session, painted after arriving late, and missing all the best places to pitch an easel, I ended up at the side, and at some distance from the model, first time I tried a ground of cadmium orange and yellow ochre. I asked the model if he was a painter, after his  questions on technique etc "only model trains and stuff"...