Ben Hughes: Party Painter!

Again, I've let it slip with the street painting, but it's the royal wedding and we're having a street party - after the success of last year's street party painting how could I resist? (posted last June)

I've got the wrong size and shape board and there's no sun to speak of, but I've started now and there's a gaggle (what is the correct collective noun? - naggle?) of neighbours expecting results.

I can do it, I can do it, I can do it and then the crowd of country dancers in the middle gets all too messy and I have to admit defeat. Hopefully I can rescue it later in the studio and, anyway, I think it's time for a beer ...

I get a five second slot on the local news (which I didn't see, but have on reliable information) in their royal wedding street party round up. Which is nice.

Two weeks later and I've finally got round to sorting it out:

Maybe this is it - Ben Hughes: Party Painter! Birthdays, weddings, bar mitzvahs. Street parties a speciality ...

hmmm

Not WIP

I originally posted these pictures a couple of months ago without the lines, but I just couldn't live with them. I kept on wondering what they would look like if ... So here they are with lines, although still without any pattern on the background, and that, I think, is how they will stay.

Going Green

23/03/2011

I'm out on the street painting again. It's been a while - must be almost 6 months, but the weather's fantastic and I've got a Wednesday free, so why not?

I go off piste so as not to attract too much attention with my bright green background. Despite this I spend the entire time trying to come up with a good response to the inevitable 'why are you painting on bright green' question. I need to be witty & cutting, yes, yes, & sound incredibly arty & clever. hmmm ... Yes, that's it! I've got it.

Apparently it's not so inevitable as no one asks me and I have to save my 'wouldn't you like to know' for another time.

I don't last long - I think painting is like gardening: take the winter off, then go out in spring & try digging the veg patch - your back is going to go ...

25/03/2011

I go outside again to finish the green painting. I start chatting with this guy who tells me about his 13 year old son who is having a one man show in Cardiff - they're saying he's like a young picasso (http://www.galleryoffthewall.com/hot-off-the-wall/circus-woman-p-972.html) and he shows me images on his phone. Wow 13! When I was 13 I was only doing pencil sketches of women in nudey mags, but maybe the less said about that, the better.

Interlude

I'm still busy posting pics with my portrait painting pals over on pre-faces, but in the mean time I am trying to push the landscapes slowly forward:

I don't know what's going wrong, but I can't seem to get rid of these streaks that keep appearing on the background. Another coat maybe? This one has already had five ...

And as a bit of light relief, check out the new yetispaghetti theme song:

Old(ish) Stuff

It's a slow blog week, cos I'm working on a body of portraits that I'm posting on a group blog over at pre-faces.blogspot.com so here's a couple of recent commissions:

and some more sketches of Jeffrey Archer. Why oh why oh why ...

I think I almost got him in that last one.

WIP?

I think it's finished ...

& I planned to do a frame and patterns all over the background of these ones, but I quite like them as they are:

It's Venice Jim, but not as you know it. Ha ha - shame about the rubbish photography.

The Bunny Shot

Sorry, rubbish pun (although I'm secretly quite pleased with it (not so secret now)), but hey look, here's the last one:

and when you put them all together - WOO HOO!:

hmm, well maybe in a different order:

or like this ...

...