A couple of portraits in oil

Here are a couple of the oil portraits I’ve done this year. All have been small, 6x8 inches.

I’m increasingly trying to work as much texture as possible into the pictures, drawing heavily on Freud, whose work I greatly admire.

I really want to try and push the oils I do next year, further in this direction, moving away from a smooth “finished” look to something much more relaxed and painterly. I think this makes for much more interesting final artwork…but it’s incredibly hard to paint something that looks relaxed and spontaneous…and like your subject matter…at least, I find it incredibly difficult.

Now I’ve got a few images from this year up here, I want to go onto explore ideas for some new work. I’d like to do a larger portrait of Sheila, pushing the texture further. I’ve got an idea for a couple of portraits of my grandfathers, who are sadly now both deceased, so I want to build the “portraits”, from meaningful objects and locations... I’m thinking of doing a small series of paintings of people in my local pub (The Queens Head). I need to put together a couple of pictures for an exhibition at a nearby reservoir. And there’s the possibility of a nice portrait commission next year too…So plenty to keep me busy…more details to follow :)