I just wanna feel.......

The ladies of the WI gave me a very warm welcome indeed last night - even helped me carry my bits to and from the car to set up for their talk and live demo. I was explaining the importance and relevance of the initial white medium base. I found myself coming up with the most bizarre clarification.

I told the ladies; 'If Robbie Williams were to ring me right now and say 'Sue, down tools, get your bag, I'm taking you to Paris for 2 days', I could walk away from this demo painting and return 2 days later to finish it off.' It's my rather fanciful way of illustrating how the white medium will stay wet enough to work with over a period of days.

A little later I uncovered a variety of paintings to illustrate what can be easily achieved using this technique, one of the subjects being my Robbie Williams portrait.

Combined with the fact I was humming 'Feel' by Robbie Williams as I was setting up....... mmmmmm a pattern forming here.

As I was in the final stages of my demo my phone went off and of course I ignored it.......but not without telling the ladies 'If that's Robbie wanting to whisk me away he'll just have to wait.'

Anyway ladies, just to let you know, it was me muvva......

Oh well, we can dream.

Jimmy Carr Twitter - ed

There I was on Friday night, winding down ...... getting ready to watch a film ...... when I received a text message to say 'Jimmy Carr has just Twitterd about you' !! I couldn't resist quickly re-booting the computer just to see. Sure enough - he had. 2 subsequent text messages have asked me for my autograph. Stop it you lot !!

Moment of truth....

If you've been followings Sue's News you'll know I've been working away on an oil painting commission of little Harry. Student's who have visited my house have been watching his progress too and he's become quite a talking point. I've been emailing the various stages to his mum, Lou, who has given me positive feedback at every stage. A few weeks ago I decided to call by Lou's and show her the real thing. I feel the softness and textures are just not being picked up enough in the photos PLUS I wanted to read her face when she saw it as the initial reaction would tell me if I was doing a good, fair or poor job. It was important for me to do this before completing the final stages on the portrait. We settled down with a coffee and a chat before I unveiled the portrait. As I set up the canvas in the best possible light I turned around to see tears in Lou's eyes. 'I have goosebumps too, the hairs on my arms are standing on end', she said. Now THAT'S a reaction, a very fulfilling one too. I'm chuffed. 'It's just like looking at him and his lips are so realistic I could kiss them.......................' she went on. And that's pretty much what my students say about him too. I'm going to have to meet this adorable little chap one day.

Crack on

I think my daughter's birthday celebrations are now over......... We enjoyed a surprise party in town last night, laid on by several of Soha's friends. Of course, this meant a slow and groggy start this morning, but once I'd fully woken up I felt ready to crack on with our little friend, Harry. After making some slight adjustments to his features I really do think I can leave his face alone now and concentrate on his hair and clothing. Saddened that I am coming to the end of this portrait, I already have some idea as to who I will paint next. I've decided to try and have an oil portrait on the go ALL THE TIME.

Eye Eye !!!!

This week I hope to refine quite a few more of Harry's details. His skin tones were laid in a while back and his lights and darks were softly added. I find I'm watching Valerie's DVD's less and less as I'm getting quite familiar with the technique now. As I paint I know she'd accuse me of fiddling - which I do a lot. In fact, before I started work on Harry's face I decided to give him a complete glaze of soft colour to tone down some of the flesh tints, making for a lighter and brighter skin tone. I worked on the teeth and mouth area. I've been sculpting the nose shape and adding the apples to Harry's cheeks. I'm just taking a break and thought it might be a nice stage to share with you. Here you can see one eye done and the other eye is yet to be refined. Just a few shadows and softening really makes all the difference, don't you think?

Facebook contacts

For those of you familiar with Facebook, you'll be well aware of how it's possible to find people from your old school / workplace / etc. Recently on Facebook I found the son of probably my oldest and dearest friend, Jacky. Jacky and I were buddies from the age of 4 right up until the time I left the UK for the Middle East. We kept in touch by letter as best we could - but at the age of 16 our teenage years soon lead us our seperate ways. It was one of the hardest things, returning to the UK some 7 years later, married and with a daughter, trying to pick up where life had left off.

A couple of weeks ago I sent a message to Jacky's son giving my contact details. Just as I was pulling cakes from the oven, the phone rang. A rather posh lady asked if she was speaking to Sue Warne, the Artist. She asked if I would consider a portrait commission. I was all ears, as you can imagine, having been busy recently with oil portraits. She explained she would like a portrait of both her and her husband - BUT - she would like to portraits to be nude. As I turned the commission down I was thinking about other artists who I could refer the work to.

And then the giggling started........................ You guessed it, my phone call was from my long lost buddy - and what's more, we're both free on Wednesday. So, I'm really looking forward to a catch-up and a trip down memory lane - without any of my portrait brushes within range!!