It’s back! The Sunday weekly challenge for artists to draw and paint a sitter, either live from 10am-2pm or in your own time from a screenshot provided or one you take yourself. You can then upload your picture to Instagram by Friday 2pm, putting a hashtag symbol in front of myPAOTW, for viewing by Instagrammers throughout the world and by the usual 3 judges.

DJ and presenter Annie Macmanus, known as Annie Mac, was painted by PAOTY 2019 finalist Sara Lavelle. Sara painted a quick likeness in acrylics then painted in oils over the top, completing most of the portrait during the programme and finishing it off during the week. The usual chat between sitter and artist was very interesting and it’s fascinating to get to know people better.

The members who took part remarked on Annie’s beautiful clear skin, bright eyes, thick curly hair and full lips. She is very beautiful and an absolute pleasure to paint.

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Cynthia spent around 3 hours altogether on her portrait, working from a screenshot. To try out some acrylic paint she had bought 4 tubes of Daler Rowley paint and a small 8” x 10” canvas in Poundland, what a bargain! Cynthia used just the 4 colours that are in her photo, which gave all the colours needed for Annie’s skin and hair tones. That’s very similar to the Zorn palette, which uses white, red, yellow and black.

Dot’s pencil sketch of Annie took only 20 minutes to get a good likeness. The watercolour took longer. Both pictures are on Bockingford.

Juliet finds sketching very therapeutic and her portrait of Annie looking very wistful is extremely detailed, including all her curls.

Steve did quick sketches of Annie whilst the programme was broadcast live. He noted how long each sketch took, which is a good way of reminding oneself when looking back through a sketchbook, as it would be hard to remember. The three at the top are ink pen and the bottom one is coloured pencil.

Tracy took about 2 hours to paint Annie in watercolours. She found Annie’s bright blue eyes the hardest to paint as they were firstly a too-intense blue, then too dull when darkened. Third time lucky and the eyes seemed about right.

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Here is Sara Lavelle’s finished portrait of Annie. Also the judges top three, the best of the youngsters’ portraits, one from the director and finally a selection of the many portraits shown on the programme a week later.