This is my first attempt at a finished portrait. Others have just been quick sketches from life drawing classes or with family.

I have no painting materials here with the lockdown. The oils, acrylics and brushes are all in Suffolk, so I’m reduced to what I have – ink with coloured pencils and a large roll of Wickes wallpapering paper.

Somehow these restrictions take the preciousness out of making art. The ‘make do’ nature of materials and production are liberating as it is okay not to be perfect.

Working for a long time on one drawing is revelatory. As you make progress you keep discovering things that are wrong with it and not properly resolved. In the time between waking and sleeping the whole perception of the image can change. It is like the well worn phrase about learning – the more you learn the more you realise how little you know – and it’s the same with drawing.

Below is a gallery snap-shot of the images prepared earlier and more recently to help make the finished drawing.

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