The boss, Chris, has been encouraging me to take part in the “Sky Portrait Artist of the Year” competition, but I’ve always refused saying the format of the competition would not suit my style.

The competition take the form of painting a portrait in 4 hours in front of the cameras. My paintings take me weeks to complete and the thought of millions of people watching my every mistake fills me with horror.

But over the last week I’ve been thinking and planning how I could condense 4 weeks into 4 hours, and I put it into practice yesterday. This self portrait took me 3hrs 17 minutes and although it has quite a few errors I think it’s a quite a good beginning. I now plan to practice this technique and if I can get over the nerves, enter the competition in March.
Happy New Year everyone, and thanks to all those who have supported Chris and I in 2014.

Tony