St. Martin in the Fields

After finishing some sketches for a commission at Tate Modern, I decided to take a walk up to the National Portrait Gallery. Passing St Martin-in-the-Fields I stumbled across the scene presented. Two businessmen were having a conversation and unnoticed behind them sat a homeless man. The homeless man was wearing a bright red hood, which really stood out in my mind.

I did not have time to sketch the scene as I was worried the players would soon move on. As unobtrusively as possible I took some reference photographs with my phone. I prefer to work from sketches because it helps keep the paintings loose and somewhat more removed from reality. In this case however I worked from the reference photographs out of necessity. It really worked well, however, and I was able to keep a spontaneous brushwork technique whilst retaining a more recognisable scene.

The piece has been framed by Kingswood Frames.

DRM