James and Daniel
"We are extremely pleased with the portraits and so happy that you painted them at that time in their lives.
We all liked the way you caught the mood and character of the boys which connects you to the portrait. Many of our friends have said how well you have captured Daniel and James and the two portraits are always a centre of attention when their friends come."
These portraits of James and Daniel were commissioned by their father after he was shown a piece I had completed of a relative. He was interested by my use of unusual colours and the way I had tried to capture the subject’s intense emotion. I therefore endeavoured to retain these elements for the portraits of his sons.
James and Daniel were clearly brothers – both confident and thoughtful young men with similar manorisms, yet with their own distinct perspectives. Daniel, a doctor, was perhaps the slightly more logical of the two, with James, working in advertising, a little more creative.
I worked to convey the brothers’ introspective nature in each portrait, and their father and I decided I would depict simple scenes which were studies of everyday life. This was in part to ensure that the pieces fit the location in which they would be hung, alongside other quite classic pieces of art in the living room.
I therefore took unposed photographs of each of the brothers around the house and we agreed upon images of Daniel sitting in the garden, and James drinking a cup of tea in the kitchen, each deep in thought.
For the style of the piece, I looked to bring out the subjects’ youthful vitality by using colourful, defined shapes, whilst employing blues to draw out their calm, composed attitudes. I also used representative elements to subtly convey context, such as green lines for the garden, and I minimised background detail to draw attention to each subject’s expression.