Exciting Announcement !

Today I took a trip to my framers to collect some paintings. My portrait of daughter number 2 is now all ready to hang in the lounge. It looks a little lonely in the alcove but I hope it will be joined by another couple of portraits fairly soon.

The originals were given as Christmas gifts and I miss them, so prints will have to do. I hope to fill this alcove with a selection of portraits over the year. They do look great hung in a group.

Plus...........while we are on the subject of portraits, here's some exciting news for you all. Valerie Stewart and I have just finalised the dates of her next UK Portrait Seminar. We'll be enjoying her company in May 2012 for another 4 days of Portrait Painting in oils. You can find details of the event HERE.

Not all of the T's have been crossed just yet but I will update the page (and Sue's News) with more details as and when they come through.

But, for now, you have the dates AND plenty of notice.

Excited ?? I am :)

If you would like to spend a few minutes enjoying some brilliant portraits you can CLICK HERE to be taken direct to Valerie's website.

Learn to paint portraits

People have been asking about Portrait oil painting lessons for some time now. Portrait painting in oils is something I took up back in June 2009. I sat down one day with a photo of Capt. Jack Sparrow, played Valerie Stewart's demo DVD and had a go. I liked her style and technique A LOT. I've painted many portraits since then. Some have featured on my website, some (more private ones) haven't. I've taken on several commissions and I have to say, I totally enjoy every aspect of portraiture. What I want readers to know, basically, is the experience that lays behind the teaching. I have involved Valerie in many of my portrait works over the past 15 months. She's been just an email away every step of the way. Just before she came to the UK, 3 months ago, she announced that I was ready to teach portraits. During her 4 day seminar in June, I gave teaching a go and assisted some of the students. I paid very close attention to Valerie's teaching style, the way she corrected mistakes, picking up as much information as I could. Valerie has given me the benefit of her years of expertise freely. Although I may have been ready to teach a few months ago, I actually haven't had the opportunity to do so, (due to prior committments), until today. I have opened up a new web page showing some photos from today's class and giving you all the details of how portraiture classes work. If you CLICK HERE you'll see how we got on in this exciting new class.

Portrait Painting

I'm pleased I don't have to drive down the narrow lanes of Ufford tonight - if they've had the same weather as Capel they'd be pretty much snowbound. We've had an absolute blizzard here today with 2 inches covering my patio in under an hour. At times it was coming down so thick you could barely see out the window. With weather like this it's ideal to set up in the cosy warm and get painting. My recent portrait project was next on the list and late this afternoon I decided to get cracking on some more details. There's still loads to do but the 3 base skin tone colours are in and I've started to work on some detailed areas. The eyes are in and I feel it makes the painting start to come to life.