Having enjoyed the Jonathan Yeo painting course from BBC Maestro, I am going to have a go at some portraits. I thought I'd start with me as I don't have to persuade a sitter to sit for me while I fumble around trying to get it right! This is therefore from a mirror next to the easel. I look rather stern but that seems to be my natural unsmiling look; sorry about that! It's not good to smile for a painted portrait anyway because it starts to get unnatural after a while, but of course, we all tend to smile for photographs. I also thought it would be more of a challenge to do it from life. I followed the Yeo process to the letter (genuflecting in his general direction) and ended up doing five or six charcoal sketches before daring to apply charcoal to the randomly blue background I had prepared on the canvas. I wore my hat since I am often in a hat, and put in a few paint splodges on my painting smock to give a bit of background. I could not think of a way to represent my two books so you'll just have to imagine that they are there somewhere!
Self Portrait, June 2024
Stretched canvas: 77cm (30in) Wide x 56cm (22in) High