Portrait of a Lady

Another in an ongoing series of portraits inspired by Indian film posters. By painting a double image that shows the sitter as a young woman and as she looks now I wanted to hint at a narrative that spans a lifetime and transforms a face.

Below are a few details of the painting.

The continuing search for a style....

I like the idea of colouring a drawing very loosely and then paring it down to a crisp silhouette .

Illustration of a dress by Jean Paul Gaultier.

Airy Fairies

After all those heavy weight elephants some delicate ballerinas. These dancers are from all the famous ballets: The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Cinderella and ofcourse The Slleping Beauty.

An assortment of vignettes taken from my book, The Usbourne Ballet Treasury.

The White King...

...or a portrait of a young chess enthusiast.

I like the idea of dressing people up in costumes that lift them out of their everyday personas, or as in this case, celebrates one of their hobbies. I particularly enjoyed painting the crown with all it's jewels ( and adding glitter for that extra sparkle )!

The paintings of Gustav Klimt are an influence on this piece. I love the way in his portraits he contrasts realistic faces with highly stylized, decorative backgrounds

Standing guard

And this is where the previous two elephants ended up. Standing guard on either side of the entrance of the BlackRock office, opposite Monuement tube station.

I really like the way the two of them shine out like little gems against the imposing architecture.

Around the World

The second design for BlackRock is made up of monuements from the cities around the world where they have their offices. As some buildings, like the Eiffel Tower and the London Eye look better lit up, we decided to make one half of the elephant Night and the other side Day.

Mayur Gajendra.

This is the first of two elephants I painted for a sponsor, BlackRock Investments, as part of the Elephant Parade. Both designs were created in collaboration with the company.

Here the elephant is combined with that other wildlife emblem of India - the peacock - and this is reflected in the name too. "Mayur" means peacock in Sanskrit, while "Gajendra" is the King of the Elephants according to Hindu folklore.

Rather than creating a symmetrical design I thought it would be more interesting to have a different focus of interest on each side. So the fan of feathers sprouts from one ear while on the other side an eye becomes part of a feather.