June\July 2021 Some classic car fan friends of mine prove to be a challenge
When I started painting pixilated portraits a couple of years ago I had a lot of help from a good friend of mine Richard Saunders, who is a wizard on his 'i Mac' and helped me work out how to produce and manipulate the pixilations.
As a thank you I did a portrait of him very early on straight after my initial one of my granddaughter
Richard an I are both keen on 'Classic Cars' and used to meet once a month, on the 1st Sunday, at a pub near Hertford, called 'The Goat'
The event was called Classics at The Goat( it has a page on Facebook).
Over the years the event grew and grew until it had outgrown the parking facilities in the village and was not as much fun as it used to be.
Early after lockdown eased Richard and I decided to arrange a separate midweek lunchtime meet for just a few of our particular chums who were also retired. We called ourselves the 'Goatbusters' and created a new Facebook page.
Initially there were 4 of us, Myself, Richard, Allen and Barry, later joined by an old colleague of mine and Richards, Peter H
During one of these lunches it emerged that each of us had some form of creative skill, so I decided to attempt to do portraits of Allen, Barry and PeterH.
As I did not know these guys so well , I was short of good photo references and I was not sure what their reaction would be, so I started with some trepidation .
Barry was the first one I attempted
I had very few pictures of Barry but I found
one that looked promising when I cropped it
much tighter .
I was so pleased with the end result as the picture did not have much
contrast or definition. It was not obvious immediately and yet seem to capture Barry quite well.
My second, Allen, was quite different as the picture had a couple of recognisable features. Unusually I could recognise who it was very early in the painting. Normally I cant tell until its finished.
We all had lunch together last Thursday and it was my first chance to give Allen the picture, with my heart in my mouth,
Thankfully he was delighted and it turned out later that his family were too. I could not be happier, as I do these paintings for my own enjoyment first and foremost. Its a real bonus if the subject likes them too, accepting that it is not supposed to be a 'realistic likeness'
My third one was of Pete H, who Richard and I used to work with as well as being one of the 'Goatbusters'
Again pictures were pretty scarce and those that I had showed him wearing a broad rimmed hat that obscured much of his face. Eventually I found an older one that looked as if it might work
​
Feb 2021. @Background Bob
During October last year, during a brief respite from being locked down, I went to an inspirational exhibition at ‘Firstsite’ in Colchester.
It is called ‘Background Bob and his amazing friends’
I won’t tell you the whole story but I strongly advise you to visit
In short it is an exhibition featuring artworks from artists across the world, brought together by @background_bob.
Noah, also known as @background_bob,is a young disabled artist who lives in Dedham, Essex.
During lockdown, Noah and his father Nathan began a collaborative painting project that reached artists from around the world.
Starting from a simple Instagram post which invited artists to collaborate with Noah by painting their chosen subject over a background he created, over 220 artists, mainly from the area of street art, as well as key workers, responded.
The response was so good that the exhibition was organised, together with a book containing the whole story and all the artworks.
With the proceeds of sales of the book and the eventual sale of all the artworks going to ‘Colchester and Ipswich Hospitals Charity’
http://colchesteripswichcharity.org.uk/supporters-events/backgroundbob/
This inspirational experience led me to try to capture Background Bob in one of my pixel portraits.
It turned out to be trickier than I expected
I only had 2 pictures as suitable references and those I had to crop very tightly indeed .which meant the detail was a little limited.
By the time I finished the first one I thought I should have chosen the other one so I had a go at that one too..
​
I am still not sure which one I prefer but in a way I think they both capture his cheery character and unlimited enthusiasm
February 2020
I was enjoying working on a new version of my son-in-law, Stu.
My previous version was a bit sombre and I was desperately trying to get the likeness.
This new version is much less obvious but at the same time much more interesting, colourful and abstract.
Time will tell if it eventually works well
Well it seems to have worked out pretty well and produced a more colourful effect that certainly is hard to identify at first sight but becomes clear as you get further away
I like it a lot.
I have also decided to try this image with fewer larger pixels to see if it can still work. A bit of a stretch I suspect.
Jan 2020 My latest effort
My current project is challenging because I only had 2 images to choose from and they were both downloaded from other sites.
Difficult to decide which to use as they both had a reasonable likeness but were very different and taken some years apart.
So the one that I recognise best may not be the best current likeness.
I suspect I will end up doing both.
Anyway, progress so far.
Todays update begins to make it more recognisable but I think there is still another days worth of finishing and fine tuning
Well this is getting tricky getting the final adjustments right to get the effect I want. I think there is one more big session needed, so hope it will be finished later today.
Well this is becoming difficult to decide whether its finished or not.
I think I'll have to leave it and come back to it in a day or so
OK. I think that has finished it and I am pretty pleased the way it turned out eventually
I guess it is no surprise that having 2 original shots to choose from I was bound to think I had chosen the wrong one.
I just had to do the other one as well to see which came out better.
This second one is VERY different but hopefully it is still interesting and a good likeness
