Recent Work:

In November 2005, I returned to painting after a gap of many years. It became immediately apparent to me that I was desperately out of practice and needed to retrain. This site is a record, in pictures and words, of the ongoing process of that retraining.

For finished paintings and drawings, please see my portfolio site: Paul Foxton Paintings

Sargent Portrait Copy, Part 3: Planes and Form

28th February 2010

I've finally got round to posting the third part of the Sargent Portrait Drawing exercise. This part goes into developing the scaffolding from two dimensions to three dimensions, and developing a feeling for the form of the head. Whilst it might look like I'm going for the 'least frequently updated art blog' award, hopefully the length of time between posts won't leave this series too disjointed.

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AIDS Orphans in Kenya - How You Can Help

30th September 2009

I hope you'll forgive me for writing a post which isn't about art for a change. This will probably be the first and last time. I want to draw your attention to the plight of AIDS orphans in one of the poorest parts of Kenya, and to the work of a charity I support which is trying to make a difference to their lives - and succeeding.

First, about the children...

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Sargent Portrait Copy, Part 2: Establishing the Main Shapes

16th September 2009

In the last post of this series, I'd set up the easel (and then drivelled on at some length as usual), put in my central line and made the first few marks, establishing the main points of the head along the centre line. Now I can start to establish the size and overall shape of the head.

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Sargent Portrait Copy, Part 1

13th September 2009

This is the first in a series of posts which will go through my current approach to copying a portrait drawing. I'm doing it in the form of an exercise, which I hope will be useful to people, and so I'll be going into some detail as I go through it - even more than usual. The limitations of written content on the web as a medium might make for some long-ish explanations, but until I get hold of a webcam or a half decent video camera I'll do the best I can with words and pictures.

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Step by Step Painting Demonstration: Winter Chrysanthemums

5th April 2009

It's a little while since I've done one of these step by step posts. This one covers the last painting I did before returning to full time work, and was originally intended to be the first of a series of flower paintings. The series is on hold indefinitely now, but writing this one up has reminded me of some aspects that I was intending to incorporate into the rest of the series, ideas about colour and design. It might be a little more difficult for me to paint flowers now, but revisiting this painting has started to get my creative juices flowing again, just a little. For the first time in a little while I'm starting to feel the call of the easel again.

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