Seven members took part in our Portrait Artist of the Month challenge this time, with Juliet drawing two beautiful portraits and Steve rising to the challenge and creating three portraits, an incredible feat!

Grayson Perry is a fascinating person to paint or draw as he is famous as himself, but he also dresses as Claire at award ceremonies and parties. Philippa, his wife, has an interesting face too, with her glasses and two-tone hair. Alan Measles, Grayson’s beloved teddy bear, makes an appearance in our portrait gallery, but sadly Kevin the cat wasn’t painted by anyone.

At our Saturday session at Chalk Church last week Cynthia painted Grayson in watercolours. The detail and subtle colour changes that she painted around his eyes is incredible.

At the same session Doreen worked from a black and white image but used colour to create her image of Grayson.

Juliet drew portraits of both Grayson and Philippa, using pencil to make light strokes and heavier strokes to make darker lines, both giving depth and texture to their features.

Steve’s three portraits are in three different mediums and show his skill in each. The portrait of Grayson is in pastel, on Canson 160gsm pastel paper.

Philippa’s portrait is in coloured pencils with white acrylic highlights, on 140lb watercolour paper.

Alan Measles is pen and watercolour on 140lb watercolour paper.

Angela D used water mixable oils, taking about 5 hours for her portrait, where Grayson is giving an intense stare to the viewer. His hair looks so real with many colours combined.

Dot had the brilliant idea of using two images of Grayson/Claire, folding them in half and joining then down his/her face. The resulting portrait is very clever and striking.

Tracy liked lots of online images of Claire, because she is usually bright, bubbly and smiling. One image was different in that Claire is staring away from the camera , not smiling, but looking very thoughtful and almost nervous. Someone can wear a lot of make-up to cover their face, but caught off guard they can look vulnerable. Watercolour on Hobbycraft 300gsm watercolour paper, taking about 2 hours.

Detail of Claire’s eyes. There were lots of eyelashes to paint!