The lovely smiling man in the image is Cyril Garblaith, a famous campanologist, a bell ringer. I had never heard of this occupation before I was contacted by my client Darren. Darren told me Cyril was a bit of a character, sadly died at Christmas 2021 at a great age of 90 years. He was the father of Darren’s friend. My client wanted to give his friend a very special gift for Christmas 2022. He contacted me with one photo of Cyril that he wanted me to interpret as an acrylic painting.
The painting is 35 x 25 cm in size painted with acrylics on stretched canvas. I provided a string at back so the painting can be hung straight away, or framed at a later time.
I worked on a slightly different canvas surface this time. My usual fine cotton canvas was out of stock before Christmas which resulted in me working on a medium grain canvas by Winsor and Newton. The quality of the canvas was excellent and the paint just sat on it so well. The medium grain also worked well with the image of Cyril as it didn’t need to be too detailed. The texture brought another dimension into the painting.
I took a lot of photographs while working on the painting, and when it was finished.
The client was delighted with the painting when he collected it from my studio just before Christmas.
