Portrait, Oil on board 8in x 10in

This is a painting of Christopher Bell, who until May was the Chorus Master for Belfast Philharmonic Choir. He is a very vital and important figure in music making and, more to the point, has a GREAT HEAD!

It was a delight to paint him. Those of you who follow this blog may notice that the only other Oils portrait I've posted was another man, Rodney, with glasses and er, not a lot of hair. Though he has a splendid moustache.. I did wonder myself if I had a thing going on, but no - I've painted folks with hair too, and I will post those at some point!

                                       Next up, 3-day portrait workshop, Belfast.
                                    Up coming - Water Colour workshop, Dublin.
                                               Intensive Portfolio Course
                                       For info email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk
                         Phone - from UK 07730 560 517 from Ireland 087 1330040
Please remember - copyright on portraits belongs to the sitter. Do not copy this in any way, thanks.

Water Colour workshop, Dublin

Here are a couple of shots from my Water Colour Workshop at the weekend. It was pretty intensive as it was designed for my Distance Learning students, as the starting-block to their water colour term, but many other students decided to come along too, jumping in at the deep end. They produced a mountain of paintings (or rather, EXERCISES), accompanied by screams of Torture, huffing, muttering under the breath and wailing for More Coffee... (and that was just me!! Only joking...) But today, I'm getting emails from them saying how Relaxing it was! How quickly we forget, which is how it should be, or we'd never start another painting.
Lovely that students came from far and wide, including flying in from Kerry, how civilised(compared to me driving through the fog!),  and Wales.

Next up, Portfolio Assembly for NCAD portfolios. This is a horrible job, but I was nearly knocked over by stampeding students when I sort of Thought-out-loud about offering this... Presentation of artwork is very important, and can transform the feel of the whole portfolio.  Portfolios need to be dropped off for a couple of hours to be sliced, cut and rearrange to its most glorious advantage ready for submission. Sunday 30th January. 

Portfolio Course, Dublin

Well, seven girls with a looming deadline for portfolio submission to college makes for highly entertaining, fast-production stress. Many had reached the difficult stages, of dealing with thought-process evolving as they unravelled the brief, but after pushing them through that pain barrier its a joy to see students come to grips with the problems before them and begin to blossom.  With hardly any kicking or screaming... Amazingly, this group said they liked it better when I got cross and said it Even More Like it IS. Eek! Girls, you are Charming, and Enchanting.
This photo puts a whole new meaning on Tidy the Table..

The only causalty of the day was a very plain but lovely cake stand from the 1960's which I intended as a prop for a student. I was putting it in the car not carefully enough, and I knew instantly from the shape of the bag that it had split into several pieces. I'm not precious about Things or Stuff, but I do like Props, so it was a shame to lose this one, which I hadn't painted yet. Never mind, there will be others!