This week 9 members took part in the session where actor/comedian/writer/musician/artist Noel Fielding was painted by PAOTY 2017 finalist Kimberly Klauss, from her home in Munich.

Another very amusing session with Noel chatting away and gesticulating with his hands, so most of us worked from screenshots we took ourselves of his various poses. Noel’s top with the bright hearts and the background of his own paintings were colourful and initially distracting, but became more interesting as the session progressed as we found out more about him and his artwork.

Kimberly painted with pure magenta, perylene black (a greenish black), warm light yellow and white. Once the paint is on the canvas she then removes certain areas with a baby wipe.

Noel told us a friend had said “his face is a bit too busy, there’s a lot going on, visually noisy.” I think we all found his face difficult at first but all got a good likeness in the end. Though we did think our own paintings looked like an apache, Geronimo, Alice Cooper, Richard III and Nicolas Cage. During the session other members of the public painting him said their paintings looked like Rambo, Jesus, Che Guevara, Pat Cash, George Best, Hiawatha, Rhod Gilbert, Captain Jack Sparrow and Stephen Fry in a wig!

We also had a quick hello from his daughter, Dali, named after Salvador Dali. Noel talked about his own artwork, some of which was behind him. He would take a month to do a painting but he now prefers painting with energy and expression. He starts with a black canvas then uses his hands to apply the paint and he reckons he’s painted 10000 pictures in the past 5 years. He also says don’t paint like anyone else, leave your personality in your painting, so when you leave the room, you are still there, having left behind your creative energy.

Here are our portraits of Noel…

Rosie sat in her garden and painted her first ever portrait in acrylics. She used 300gsm watercolour paper, 40cm x 40cm. A very good likeness for a first time with acrylics!

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Ron painted in his garden too but found the acrylics dried quite quickly. It was his first time painting from the session, so hope you enjoyed the experience. There are 2 more sessions to join in with :o)

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Juliet did a pencil drawing from a screenshot, as Noel did talk and move a lot, getting so much detail and texture into the skin.

Susan painted with watercolours, building up with layers of colour. She used alizarin crimson mixed with raw umber for most of the skin tones, and you can also use raw sienna. The darker skin tones are a mix of French ultramarine and burnt umber, or you can use van Dyke brown.

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Dot used watercolours and watercolour pencils and enjoyed all the chats between Noel and Kimberly.

Steve used watercolour on Bockingford watercolour paper for this laughing portrait of Noel and also painted his portrait in oils.

Angela D sketched Noel then painted over it with acrylics and oils, taking about 4 hours.

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Cynthia used soft pastels on Canson Ti Meintes paper, creating life-like skintones.

Tracy sketched and wrote down snippets of conversation during the session and then painted afterwards from a screenshot of a slightly smiling Noel. The black and white acrylic painted in 3 hours sounded a good idea at the time, but is just too stark. The watercolour took just 20 minutes and she prefers that one!

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Here are the judges choices for the top 3 adult and youngsters’ paintings and Kimberly’s finished portrait of Noel…

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