Another portrait and some favourite contemporary artists

Here's another portrait I painted a few weeks back - This one is copied from a photo by Lee Jeffries, who received much-deserved acclaim for his series of portraits of the homeless.

I decided to paint this using a very restricted palette - originally I used just burnt sienna, but then added some raw umber and a touch of ultrmarine for the darks, and titanium white for the beard.

As I'm always looking to improve, I have been studying many contemporary artists as well as Old Masters. Its fascinating to see all the different styles of painting, and makes me realise just how much I don't know! I have to remind myself that I've only been doing this for half a year..but patience is not one of my best features ;)

Among my favourite artists are Gregg Kreutz, David A. Leffel and Richard Schmid - these are all widely recognised as some of the best artists living today. I also love Rupert Alexander's work - This talented guy painted the Queen when he was just 23! Can you suggest any more I should look at?

Ruth Photoshoot - August 2011

As mentioned previously, here are some of the images from a shoot with contemporary dancer Ruth. These were taken in Trent Park in North London - a location I'm sure I will use again for its varied scenery. We shot a variety of dance sequences to get the first two shots below, which show Ruth's poise and elegant motion. It was my first time capturing movement and it's definitely not easy! Some shots were posed at the end, mainly to give me a rest :)

Ruth also brought her hubby to the shoot, so I put him to use holding the reflector! We also did a mini shoot at the end of Ruth's session. Hope you enjoy this selection.