A portrait of Flynn Beltane 2018 1100mm x 700mm Oils on cradled birch faced ply panel
In gathering reference for this painting, I’d captured Flynn at a dark period in his life and, as I worked, I became conscious of the melancholy behind his eyes.
This was after a chance encounter at a Festival of Transport in 2012. In fact, when we met some time later, he had no recollection of me photographing him, nor that he’d attended the festival.
Having previously enjoyed working larger on ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’ and because I was keen to work into the detail on the Raleigh Chopper, I decided that this piece needed to be taller – my first over a metre. I began the early stages of the painting later that year. My habit at the time was to dedicate the two weeks of the Christmas holiday to painting. At that time, I had so many other projects demanding attention, I needed to force client work aside to indulge in painting. After a reasonable start, the painting was set aside for a while as other projects bullied their way back to the front of the queue. However, his stare from the corner of the studio was constantly encouraging me to get it finished!
Flynn had no idea I’d been working on the painting until it was completed and I contacted him in the closing quarter of 2018.
I took the painting to his home in Herefordshire and, upon viewing the piece, he was oddly speechless for some time.
A portrait of Flynn Beltane 2018 1100mm x 700mm Oils on cradled birch faced ply panel
In gathering reference for this painting, I’d captured Flynn at a dark period in his life and, as I worked, I became conscious of the melancholy behind his eyes.
This was after a chance encounter at a Festival of Transport in 2012. In fact, when we met some time later, he had no recollection of me photographing him, nor that he’d attended the festival.
Having previously enjoyed working larger on ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’ and because I was keen to work into the detail on the Raleigh Chopper, I decided that this piece needed to be taller – my first over a metre. I began the early stages of the painting later that year. My habit at the time was to dedicate the two weeks of the Christmas holiday to painting. At that time, I had so many other projects demanding attention, I needed to force client work aside to indulge in painting. After a reasonable start, the painting was set aside for a while as other projects bullied their way back to the front of the queue. However, his stare from the corner of the studio was constantly encouraging me to get it finished!
Flynn had no idea I’d been working on the painting until it was completed and I contacted him in the closing quarter of 2018.
I took the painting to his home in Herefordshire and, upon viewing the piece, he was oddly speechless for some time.