Graham Chapman (Lucie Ash Invisible Portraits exhibition)

During my stay at the Southampton City Art Gallery in spring 2022, I was invited to provide a small painting to be included as part of a larger artwork for the Lucie Ash Invisible Portraits exhibition. 

This larger artwork was to contain a large amount of small portraits done by artists and non arts, as a part of a celebration of the LGBTIQ+ community. The artwork, split over two panels consisted of 646 separate pieces of artwork, done in a variety of styles. My contribution was one that featured Graham Chapman, a member of Monty Python who had died in the early 1980's. 

It is painted in oils on a supplied, cut to size canvas (8.6cm x 7.7cm), which I sanded down and re-primed to make as smooth as possible as the weave was crude at that scale. As reference I used a screen capture showing Chapman in one of his many Monty Python characters, the army general who would typically interrupt a sketch and cancel it for the next one in the programmes running order. 

The exhibition ran from September 2022 through to January 2023.

Painting faces exercise Zorn palette. Further characters from 'On the Buses'.

A further 3 portraits of cast members from the popular 1970's TV series 'On the Buses'. From left to right can be seen Michael Anthony Robbins as Arthur Rudge, Anna Karen as Olive Rudge and Doris Breamer Hare MBE, as Ethel "Mum" Butler.

Each painting is done on cardboard sized at 12”x 9 “ and painted in oils using the limited 'Zorn' colour palette, consisting of  ivory black, Cadmium red, titanium white and yellow ochre. 

The three main characters artwork can be seen on this link. 

Upstart Crow Credit

Upstart Crow Credit

Sometimes I do work for television although it is rare nowadays, though in my earlier life most of my out put was for TV, mainly commercials. This series, 'Upstart Crow' has just finished its run on the BBC, with another series in the wings. My job was to create the drawings for the title sequence and the location inserts under the direction of my talented friend and director/ animator Kate Sullivan, whose web site is here. The comedy series is written by Ben Elton and stars David Mitchell, as William Shakespeare with a good supporting cast. Upstart Crow was commissioned as part of the 400th year anniversary of Shakespeare's death, strand of programme. The title sequence, and the style of the art obviously reflects the drawings of the day. Sadly, due to BBC rules, I only get a credit on the final programme of the series!
The artwork itself can be seen on my website, here.

Martin Davey credit on Upstart Crow