In 2020, after not having painted anything (except walls and ceilings) for a number of years, I began picking up my paint brushes again. This led to creating an on going series of portraits of various public figures I admired and who are sometimes neglected as subjects for portraits. After sharing them on Instagram and receiving a surprising amount of kind words, I decided to offer them as signed prints on my Etsy shop.
At the start of 2020 the world quickly changed, as we all know from the Covid-19 virus. I quickly found myself self isolating due to my rubbish lungs and felt particularly useless in the whole situation, so I jumped at the chance to take part in the #portraitsfornhsheroes initiative, founded by the wonderful artist Tom Croft. The idea was to offer a free portrait to a NHS/frontline worker, to say thank you and spread a little awareness of what was happening out there. I ended up taking on seven of these portraits, each one a truly moving, inspiring, sobering and heartwarming experience.
