Pantomimist, 2025

I first drew this in 1984 and did not follow through with a painting.

In 2024, I came across the drawing again while looking for something else and decided I would now paint it 41 years later! It's an elegant, portly clown; I must have taken my children to a pantomime show or a travelling circus. I have a faded memory of the figure, but not the occasion. Such is the vagaries of a painting’s stimulation.

The work consists of a Rowney Cryla acrylic base coat of burnt orange, then opaque pigments are used to lay down the undercoating of some of the subject matter. Subsequently, acrylic paint was applied in washes that had been thinned using diluted Liquidex airbrush medium. This layering of the work allows for subtle tonal attributes that give depth and intensity. The overall result is an acrylic painting with a degree of luminosity rather than the usual flat acrylic finish.