“John in his studio”, 2021

“John in his studio” came about after I had asked the painter John Bokor if I could paint his portrait – and he said yes! We both live in the Illawarra so I went to visit his studio a couple of times during the school holidays of January 2021. I knew he was very busy working towards a show, so was prepared for him not sitting still. I made a series of large drawings and also small pencil ones – first in charcoal & conte for locating a sense of space, then with oil pastels to introduce colour notes.