I have spent the early days of 2021 discovering some exciting portrait painters on www.thecbpp.org website who have been something of a revelation as many of them are unconventional in their approach to such painting and quite different from the traditional portrait painting found, for example, in the members of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters . I first discovered this very refreshing group of artists from the book “Portraits for NHS Heroes” which I mentioned in the last blog and bought recently, a project put together by Tom Croft, which is also raising money for the NHS by donating all royalties from sales to NHS Charities Together. Tom Croft was also one of the brilliant contestants in the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year and, in my view, this is probably the best forum I know for good contemporary portrait painting. Here he is in the competition with Kirsty Walk:-
Clive Bryant is another artist from the collective of contemporary British portrait painters whose work I’m very impressed with. I’ve not tackled much portrait work myself in the last couple of the weeks due to short and gloomy days but I do intend to keep trying to improve my portraiture attempts spurred on by some of the outstanding work I found both in the book and on the contemporary artists website.
I have slowly worked on a landscape painting of lakes, mountains, sky and reflections which is a spontaneous creation with no particular reference source, as similar scenes can probably be found in many places in the world such as Wales, Scotland, New Zealand and several other countries or areas with a similar variable climate. The sky and time of day is also ambiguous and painted in a totally intuitive way, but my inclination is towards a warm early evening sunset as Autumn approaches. It’s my first reasonably substantial project of 2021:-
I’m committed over the next few months to commissions which I’m preparing for now but I’m still determined to learn more about and improve my approach to portraiture. I’m only too well aware of my weaknesses in this specialist area so, as a final gesture and acknowledgement of their talent, I would like to include another one of the winning artists in the Sky competition which is a must see for all aspiring portraitists.
