Portrait of an amazing couple

This painting was started en plein air.  Luckily it was a hot day without any wind, which was just as well as we had to get the 4' x 3' canvas with a sturdy easel and my kit all the way down to the lake in the buggy.

I first met Dennis and Charlotte when I was Artist in Residence on a World Cruise in 2012.  As soon as I had finished a public lecture on my portraiture Dennis whizzed up in his wheelchair and declared that he wanted a portrait of his beautiful wife Charlotte.  After getting to know them over the next few months on board I was told their remarkable story.  Dennis was seriously injured in an accident on his father's cattle ranch in Kenya only a few years into their marriage, which left him confined to a wheelchair from that time. Facing this huge challenge undaunted they have built a lifestyle together which has included creating and designing this lake with it's magical loggia, and farming a vineyard.

I wanted to put them both in the picture, with their beloved little dog,  as a celebration of their close relationship and their triumph over insuperable odds.

Susan Edwards contact: paintingalive@live.co.uk

New Portraits

I love painting children but it is always wise to keep in mind the phrase "never work with children and animals" when you arrive for a first sitting.  The key is flexibility.  It helps to get children to sit to you doing something that interests them so the portrait is spontaneous and lively, reflecting their personality, not yours.
This was a family of seven grandchildren, cousins, and getting the likenesses of all the children to the same quality was always going to be the biggest challenge as it was inevitable they would be compared - for ever!

We had a lot of fun with the poses. Feisty Antonia loved showing off her Pony Club Rosettes,  Aggie was "The perfect English Rose", barefoot in the garden, Christian plays Rugby for his school, so that was a no brainer, Imogen appeared cool and self possessed as the eldest, in full riding fig.  Little Sam hardly noticed I was there during his favourite Dinosaur game and neither did Toby, who pulled a face when I arrived, reluctant to put aside the car he was repairing. He cheered up instantly when I said her could continue mending the car while I painted.  Result one fairly exploded car and one fun painting.  The family don't call him Professor for nothing.. wind forward thirty years and I've an inkling it is prescient, which is why I put some roses and the door key to the wine cellar in the background! The most laid back sitter was Thomas, relaxing with his Lab.

You've immortalised me in paint! The First Lady Chelsea Pensioner Win Phillips is delighted with my portrait of her, now hanging in The Royal Hospital, Chelsea

It was great to catch up recently with Win Phillips recently at The Royal Hospital Founder's Day parade.
Win sat to me for her portrait which now hangs in the Royal Hospital so she has a conversation with her 'double' frequently!

The Hospital was founded by Charles II in 1682, for veterans of wars, and Founder's Day takes place every year close to his birthday, 29 May, and by coincidence also the date of his Restoration as King in 1660.

On arrival guests are given a sprig of Oak Leaves to commemorate Charles's deliverance from the Parliamentarians after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester, when he hid in an oak tree.  I painted an oak tree into Win's portrait as a visual symbol of the continuation of protection and care The Royal Hospital affords it's 300 or so pensioners, which thanks to Win's efforts now includes lady pensioners.

We had a fantastic view of the traditional ceremony as we were centrally placed in the stand near Grinling Gibbons statue of the King, dazzlingly re-gilded in 2002 for the Golden Jubilee.

Win's piercing blue eyes were ablaze with fun as we enjoyed an aperitif or two afterwards in celebration of the event!

Hi, I'm Susan Edwards, welcome to my blogspot!

                  Hi, I'm Susan Edwards,
                Welcome to my blogspot!

This is the first posting. So I'm starting with the good news that I had a painting selected to exhibit with the Royal Institute of Oil Painters at their Mall Galleries Exhibition last month - December 2012. 

During 2012 I was lucky enough to be appointed as Artist in Residence on a 4 month World Cruise. It was the opportunity of a lifetime to paint in some fantastic locations. On the days at sea I was delivering over 70 practical watercolour painting sessions to passengers, and 

Demonstrating Portrait painting onboard

demonstrating oil portraiture.  Days ashore saw me setting up my box easel in locations as far apart in distance, culture and visual impact as Easter Island and Beijing!  That's when having to paint fast really kicks in! it really has speeded up my technique!     Take too long and the ship  
has gone without you!

The ship hasn't left me behind yet! Bora Bora 2012

As well as inspiring views, it's fantastic to meet people from different cultures and tribes - no problem with the language! Watch everyone's faces as they recognise a friend or scene coming alive on the canvas!. Tourists of course think that you are only really there to
make their holiday snap more interesting!!

 Back home on shore 37 thousand sea miles later, I'm now developing the canvases into a World series.   I used to write and illustrate an Artist's Diary for a glossy regional magazine so I thought I'd jot down some of my globe trotting adventures with my paints to accompany the paintings and amuse myself on winter evenings!!   Here are the first two:

Pitcairn Island

Only a few cruise ships in a year manage to get passengers ashore on Pitcairn, because of the rocky shoreline and the wild seas .  It's too far to fly and in any case too rocky to land a plane there.  It is right in the middle of the world's largest Ocean, the Pacific, and to give you an idea how far it is from anywhere, it is midway between New Zealand and Panama about three and a half thousand miles in either direction.

Through driving rain and wind  our ship approached this little grey lump of rock. The sea was lashing the jagged rocks. It was going to be impossible to land with our tenders (small boats), but we had on board two New Zealanders, schoolteachers, who somehow had to get ashore, so the ship hove to.

Pitcairn is famous for being the hideaway of the 9 mutineers from the Bounty. They formed a small colony there in 1789 led by mutineer leader Fletcher Christian and his tall, beautiful Polynesian wife, who was a chief's daughter.

On Tuesday 7th February 2012,We all watched open mouthed as the seventh generation descendants of the original mutineers almost all 64 of them except the youngest, came out to the ship in the island's traditional open 40 foot boat ! They performed near miraculous feats of seamanship, each person grabbing the wildly swinging 50 foot rope ladder on the rise of a big wave, then shinning up it with bundles of handicrafts with nothing but the boiling sea below!  All this with the ship troughing in the deep swell in the opposite direction.

The Pitcairner's economy relies on their craft goods, and passengers were treated to superb displays of carvings, and the incongruous sight of muscular tattooed mixed race Polynesian islanders many with the surname Christian, in piratical gear making a beeline for the free soft ice cream machine! (A luxury too far for their generators!)
Meanwhile the ship can't anchor and is circumnavigating the island and I am trying to paint a moving scene from the balcony!! We went round the island at least three times, and there were a few lucky breaks in the cloud.  In my painting the wind seems to buffet the island from many directions and the sheer cliffs get transposed and moulded into a monolithic shape.  This happened as the painting evolved, but as I stand back I realise that it just about sums up the atmosphere of the place.

  Bora Bora 

Bora Bora or Vaitape, unlike Pitcairn Island,IS what you always dreamed a Pacific Island should be like: turquoise sea, coral reef, white sand, swaying palms..but everything is not as it seems.  Is it ever?! there's always sand in the sandwiches!!

I take the local bus along the shore with the crew on shore leave. They are heading for the nearest beach with a thatched hut bar and cool beers, I'm looking for a good view.  Slowly it dawns that the straw beach huts, some on stilts over the water are all deserted.  It seems that the global downturn has hit the island, always a luxury destination, very badly.  Nobody is about, and the place seems to be declining back to the wild, 'going native' again.  Magic totems carved and painted with strange eyes and beaks in unexpectedly strident colours, leer at you unnervingly from the undergrowth, letting you know that things haven't ever changed here for centuries, only acquired a modern 'gloss'.  It's so beautiful, but so hot!  So I find a shady spot - not directly under a coconut palm - a fall from one can kill you stone dead!- and begin painting this perfect view.

I'm hailed by a lone passenger who calls over to me ecstatically: 'the perfect island, the perfect view and there's even an artist ..' (as I said before, artists are only there for the benefit of  tourists!)

After a short while I need the Viridian.  I know I've brought it as I've just used some.   After three thorough searches I get cross not being able to find it, and then it occurs to me to search the round holes all round me on the beach,  (there are some in the painting).   Deep in one is my green tube of paint! so I put my hand down the hole to get it.   It's only later that I'm told that I've been trespassing on land crab territory and they pinch (literally) anything and carry it off to their burrows.   I saw and heard nothing!  but luckily for me the resident land crab which had appropriated my paint didn't think my hand was an invading rival, as they fight like mad over every find!!

More adventures from my travels when I've finished 7 portrait commissions!

Keep on Keeping on!

I was really pleased to have a painting selected for the ROI 2012 show. The first time I submitted work a few years ago, two of my paintings came back labelled 'this work narrowly missed selection, please submit next year'.

That small scrap of positive feedback went on the wall in the studio for whenever I needed encouragement for my inner conviction about the direction of my work! Thank you ROI!

Have you noticed - recent ROI Previews and Events have got a new buzz about them.  There's a great mix of experienced artists and young bloods. After decades, figurative painters are back, with strong, exciting and innovative work built on traditional foundations.  Respect!!

Visit my new blog, for the first instalment of my diary of plein air painting adventures, as Artist in Residence on a four month World Cruise in 2012:
                                            susanedwardsoilpainting.blogspot.com