I was recently commissioned to paint the Lemon Tree Trust Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. I was very excited when I saw the garden; a large lemon tree planted in the middle, surrounded by flowers and olive trees. The trust supports gardening initiatives in refugee communities as a way of restoring dignity, purpose and cultural identity. After walking around the garden and looking at various angles and viewpoints I found my favourite and got to work. It was a wonderful day and I met some fantastic people working for a wonderful cause.
One day, I was chatting to a very friendly taxi driver about beautiful places just a short train journey away from London. He suggested Margate and so I went the following day.
Painting Antonio
I recently painted a talented songwriter friend of mine named Antonio Grifoni. Until then, I had been somewhat doubtful about how I was going to do this as he rarely sits without playing his guitar.
My approach was one that I adopt when painting a landscape – keeping it loose and more impressionist than some of my other portraits. I enjoyed using more colour than I might normally, though keeping them fairly muted.
We listened to his music the whole way through. My Instagram has quite an amusing video of one of the sittings.
