Portrait of Louise

Although most of my paintings are worked in acrylic mixed media and style wise a mixture of abstract, still life and landscape, I particularly enjoy the challenge of portraiture and figurative work. My preference is to select faces and scenes that are of interest to me – usually a particular sort of face, look or style. I often enjoy beginning portraits from a series of sittings where I can talk to the sitter, get to know a little about them and get an idea of where I’m going…after that, I use photographs taken during the sitting to complete the piece. 

Louise, an Edinburgh singer songwriter, works in Twelve Triangles (next door to my gallery, The Velvet Easel Gallery in Portobello) by day and by night is Goodnight Louisa…her most recent single is ‘Agnes’…  I love the song and listened to it and other pieces of Louise’s work whilst painting.

I went into Twelve Triangles one morning for my coffee – Louise was standing just as she is in the painting at the counter. I liked her stance, it had attitude and she had an easy elegant style and a sort of clear freshness in her demeanour. I asked if I could take her photograph in order to paint her – she kindly agreed, and this is the finished result. I really enjoyed painting it and Louise herself seemed happy with it…which is always a great relief

Huge talent – have a listen to her single.