Here is a selection of the preparatory drawings I started at Port Talbot Steelworks in October last year. These drawings began as quick sketches made from life, each taking between 5 and 15 minutes, and were then worked back into using the photographs that I took as reference. They are working drawings and not intended to be finished portraits in themselves, but are a useful starting point for me to begin the final paintings. They are a really important part of the whole process for me, as they allow for time to get to know the face of the subject.
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I was able to spend two days at the Steelworks in Port Talbot back in October last year, when Tata Steel UK allowed me onsite to begin a project to create a series of portraits of steel workers there. I met sixteen employees who represented the wide range of different roles and expertise of those working at the steelworks. I made some quick sketches with the sitters which I continued to work into following my visit to use as my preparatory drawings for the final portraits. I also made audio interviews with each sitter to accompany the paintings. I spent the first day at the steel production side of the site, and the second over at the two blast furnaces, which were in the process of being decommissioned when I visited, having already "gone cold" (or almost - one was still smoking after almost a month!). It was an inspiring experience for me to meet some of the people that work at Port Talbot, and I was grateful that Tata Steel UK gave me the opportunity to visit the site, which I had been fascinated by since being a small kid, always looking out the window of the car as my parents drove along the M4 on the way to see my grandparents in nearby Gorseinon. I met Lloyd a few years ago and have been lucky enough to spend some time recording audio interviews and making some paintings and drawings in his workshop, where his radiator-repair business has been based now for over forty years. At the age of eighty-five, Lloyd is still working and bringing his knowledge, experience and skill to repairing car radiators, usually concluding his working day at 3pm. I've been working on a series of portrait studies of Lloyd and aim to bring the paintings and drawings together to be accompanied by some of the audio recordings. Lloyd is a real inspiration, with such an eventful and long working life; he has so many brilliant stories and memories to tell. Below is a short clip of Lloyd speaking about how a chance occurrence that happened on a building site he was working on in London in the 1960s turned out to be a fortuitous change of fortune, giving him an opportunity to demonstrate his skill with welding - one of the trades he had learnt growing up in Jamaica. Below are a few of the drawings and paintings I have made of Lloyd (one painting also includes Julie, Lloyd's wife, who works with him in the workshop). The drawing is made with pastel pencil and the two paintings are watercolour and colour pencil. Before Vic retired I interviewed him about his long working life as a carpenter. Here is a very short clip from the audio interview I made with Vic, talking about his workmates. At some point I would like to present more of the interview I made with him as a piece of social documentary to accompany the drawings and paintings I made of him. Kent DuChaine is an American Blues singer and guitarist based in Fort Gaines, Georgia. I first met him at a gig 6 years ago during one of his popular UK tours and have since made it to several of his performances, which mix his exhilarating instrumental and vocal virtuosity with a zest for storytelling. In this portrait, Kent is playing his beloved 1934 National Steel guitar, nicknamed "Leadbessie". On his t-shirt is the famous image of Robert Johnson. In 1989, Kent began playing with the legendary bluesman Johnny Shines, and they performed over 200 shows together over a period of three years. Shines had travelled and played alongside Robert Johnson during the 1930s and both musicians are a big influence on DuChaine's Delta Blues sound. In this portrait I wanted to capture the character and soul of DuChaine, who still maintains a heavy touring schedule in his late sixties, as well as something of the love and lifelong dedication he has for Blues music itself.
I recently completed two book cover designs, a new edition of Niedermayer & Hart (originally published 2012), and its sequel, Wilhelm & Laszlo, the much anticipated second part of MJ Johnson’s trilogy. The reason for creating a completely new cover for N&H was that, looking back, we realised that the original cover may inadvertently have given some potential readers the impression it was a different genre than horror, e.g. a work of historical romance, and we didn’t want to mislead in any way. We liked the way the 1st Edition looked, so readers may notice that the new edition retains the main image of a snow-covered Valle Crucis Abbey on its back cover.  I think that the old saying: ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ is sound advice, but ironically, it is the very thing we so often do; if you are creating a book cover, your job, as I see it, is to reach the people most likely to enjoy reading it. Essentially, you want to grab their attention with an eye-catching design, and impel them to pick the book up, turn it over to read its blurb, then hopefully buy and read it! So, I welcomed the opportunity to redesign a cover more in keeping with the book’s qualities, and hope it will encourage more readers to discover these books. The follow-on title to N&H, Wilhelm & Laszlo, cried out for a strong, graphic cover, yet needed to inform the reader that it was part of the same universe as its predecessor. We felt that as parts of a trilogy, the overall design and branding of all three should have a coherency, which is why the fonts and spine motifs are consistent. I’m really pleased with how the covers evolved and turned out; they are the result of five separate oil paintings, completed over the summer, then scanned at high resolution before adding the text.  It was great to work with my father once more to produce original cover artwork for his books, and to know that I am supporting the creative endeavours of an indie author, as well as the very small independent Odd Dog Press, which now has four worthwhile titles to its name. I hope you like the covers and enjoy reading the books!  Limited edition of 30 digital prints, individually signed and numbered by the artist - for more information go to PRINTS page
 A limited edition of 100 Giclée prints is now available. Please see the Prints page for more information.
 My recent painting: 'The Bullshiteers (with a nod to Hans Holbein)'
I completed it a couple of weeks before the US election - a satirical take on Holbein's 16th century masterpiece: 'The Ambassadors', which hangs in The National Gallery, London. A limited edition of prints available on my PRINTS page. Over the last few summers I’ve taken advantage of any really sunny mornings to make pictures in the garden. Wherever direct sunlight was falling on the ground, I’d place a number of picture frames, customized with clamps or clips holding them firmly together. Periodically throughout the day, I’d return to reposition the frames, following the course of the sun until it finally set above the houses. The frames would then be gathered up again and brought inside to be returned the next morning, and so on. There were no brushstrokes made. The sun was the key to making these pictures and I just needed to ensure the frames were in the right place for them to take shape. I was busy making anthotypes, an early form of photograph in which a delicate silhouette or photogram is created using only natural pigments exposed to sunlight. Pressed between the glass of the frame and a piece of stained paper, I placed any collected leaves or plant cuttings, as well as negatives printed onto acetate. This beautifully simple and satisfying process gradually creates a stunningly ephemeral image.
Digital photography has moved us into new ways of image making, but more and more artists are returning to the old science behind early photography as a way to revisit and explore the many creative possibilities. The English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel was a pioneer in actino-chemistry and wrote a paper in 1842 entitled – “On the action of the rays of the solar spectrum on vegetable colours, and on some new photographic processes.” His experiments used solutions including those derived from plants and flowers that were light-sensitive. I’ve made anthotypes from a range of pigments including fruit juices (the most successful being pure cranberry and blueberry), vegetable dyes (beetroot and red cabbage are good), coffee, red wine and spices. Anthotypes are a great little Science/Art experiment to make with kids. The results aren’t instant, but as long as shadows aren’t being cast across your frame, you can leave one on the window sill during the week, and check on its progress at the end of each day. You’ll find that pigments have a range of different qualities and lightfastness. Beetroot, for example, turns yellow when exposed to the sun, which contrasts beautifully to the rich magenta colour of the original pigment, and you can see the exposed colour changing within a few days of sunshine. Blueberry juice on the other hand is very lightfast, and it can take weeks to get a really good contrast. Most pigments will need a few coats to get a really strong colour on the paper. The water left over from steamed red cabbage will give you an intense blue if you give the paper several coats. If you simply haven’t got the time to prepare pigments in the kitchen, you can buy pure juices and dyes off the shelf, but probably the most instant and mess-free way to start, especially for projects with children, is to buy a cheap multi-coloured pack of sugar paper. The pigments used in the manufacturing of this paper are bright and vibrant but are not lightfast, so they work perfectly for anthotypes. When finished, they can be kept and enjoyed in scrapbooks or as bookmarks. You can, of course, produce anthotypes throughout the year indoors, if you use a UV lamp, but there is something special about the seasonal nature of making them in the sun, and the results are very rewarding. Some artists do exhibit anthotypes, but because the pigments used are so sensitive to any further exposure to light, they are usually viewed in galleries by lifting up a protective piece of black-out material. If exposed to direct sunlight the darker areas of an anthotype will gradually fade away entirely, a reminder that these are truly ephemeral images that appear and disappear in the light. |
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January 2025
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