Alex, working (ACME Studios Series, Number 1)

'Alex' 50"x40" Acrylic on canvas

A "work in progress" of an artist friend of mine, chiefly a photographer although he also paints. This is still being worked on, as I'm not totally happy with the flesh tones and overall "feel". Acrylic is a wonderfully flexible medium to work with, but it does have issues, these principally for me being the relative strength of some of the dye-based paints.

However, it is superb for capturing sketches and preparatory work, the charcoal and acrylic study being an example of one of my "working" images.

The painting is somewhat busier than I would normally paint as a portrait, but I wanted to include some of his non-photograhic work in the background. As a successful photographer (and very shortly a first-time father), I imagine his output of paintings might trail-off... it captures a period of his life.

'Alex' 24"x18" Acrylic & charcoal on canvas