These works came about through a desire to make portraits. I initially embarked on this in a traditional manner, sitting in front of the subject. My method of working though is very slow and usually over a long period. It simply wasn’t possible to get the subject to give that sort of time to such a project. I therefore resorted to taking photos and enlarging them digitally to life size, pinning them to the wall and seeking to place them in an environment by pinning other visual elements around them. These were all black and white. I then proceeded to draw in the usual manner but found that the lack of colour was frustrating and so leaning across began to colour the pinned-up imagery directly and resumed drawing. I would then make other changes to the source material and started to draw into it directly. Clearly my interest had shifted to what was on the wall and away from what was on the easel. I therefore abandoned the drawing on the easel, stood up and started turning the wall image into the one I wanted to pursue. Several of the results of this approach are here.

These images are constructed from photographed elements digitally manipulated and printed out on A3 pieces of paper and then stuck together and then worked into using chalk pastels. From an archival standpoint they will probably have a limited life unless and they are framed up to a high standard.