Self portrait with Craig.

So my big boet. Happy birthday, you would have been 45 today! 19 years this year since I last saw you. Could you see me today you'd laugh, my age is catching up with me a little. Beginning to feel like though you were my big bro, you're now feeling like my younger brother, well, you will of course always only be 26! Anyhow, I thought this would make a nice theme for a painting - here's a sketch of one I began a couple of nights ago. To be completed at some other point. A nice idea I thought. Perhaps I'll revisit it from time to time.

Also, please excuse my expression and my distance.It somehow felt right. I would give anything to give you a hug again Craig.

Addendum to this. Worked up a little.

Big Issue Seller

It's amazing I found time to do a painting / sketch while I'm in the middle of a show. But remarkably I did. There's this Big Issue Seller on the walk to the Thames from Waterloo Station that I see every morning when I catch the train to work in the weekday mornings. Always struck me that he cut a heroic sort of figure. I imagined a figure looming large over the London skyline. Here he is I think still a proud figure, perhaps weather beaten and resilient looking. 

Reference is as ever critical. I really do need to come out of my shell and talk to people if I'm ever to do these portrait sketches. Thought he might think I was some kind of middle class wierdo. Took these on a long lens from across the street one morning. Ultimately they dictated what the sketch would be. The area is full of these Victorian era rail bridges and the arched tunnels. Used on to frame him and set him off the background.