It has been a very long time since I produced a blog as I have been extremely busy over the last year or so since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis, producing a fair amount of new work and having limited edition prints of my work done which I mentioned in my last blog to make my output more affordable in these difficult times. These were sold at art fairs in November 2022 and April 2023. This move proved very successful and, at the most recent Spring Fair I virtually sold out, and donated all the money to the Bexleyheath Salvation Army for its work in the community for the homeless and those using it’s “warm space” during the winter months. I have also continued practising portraiture using music as my inspiration by doing several more portraits of songwriters and musicians whose music I really admire. I’ve also had the opportunity to give talks to a regular meeting of elderly pensioners about my career in the music industry and art activities in retirement using my paintings and recorded music to illustrate these sessions.
Here are some of the more recent artworks I have produced.
The most recent portrait I have attempted was to celebrate a wonderful character I have come to know in the last year or so who had his hundredth birthday on 4th May this year which was commemorated with a surprise party for him two days before his special day.
His name is Cyril Durban and during the time he has been with us he gave a talk about his early life and will be giving another one soon. Cyril served in the Royal Navy during the second world war and sailed to various countries on a number of ships in that time. He gave vivid and detailed account of various incidents that happened and some of his exploits in his travels.
As I am completing this blog, news has just come in that Tina Turner, the Queen of Rock and Roll, has just died, so here is my portrait of her. She suffered abuse, survived, built a new career for herself and became an absolute legend in her lifetime. She was also a very kind and generous person too. RIP Tina one of the finest live performers of all time whose name and example will live on for many years to come.
I’m now pausing to review the current art situation as I still have a fairly large number of unsold works and the more I look around at galleries that are still managing to cope with the current economic situation and see also the kind of art that online galleries are showing, I’m seriously wondering whether I should be producing the kind of traditional material that have painted during the last twenty five years or so.