Portraiture

Since childhood I have been interested in portraiture. I remember walking round Aberdeen Art Gallery as a young girl and always stopping at ‘Titians First Essay in Colour’ by William Dyce thinking how wonderful it would be to be able to paint like that. Suitably inspired I’d go home and start drawing  various members of my immediate family. I got a lot of joy out of trying to get a good likeness.

I love the challenge of capturing the essence of a person. Spending time with my subjects enables me to observe them closely as I believe that a good portrait is not just about what they look like, its also about  engaging with them - their personality and their views on life which helps me to re-create the whole person on paper. I try to incorporate as many different facets of the sitter into the finished portrait as I possibly can.