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Model: Ash

After having got absolutely nowhere on my previous two sessions I was determined to make a better job of it. Yes, I would use paint. Well... acrylics

Warm Up Sketch

Our model was Ash, a light skinned British Asian girl with extremely cool glasses. Much to my delight she was allowed to keep them on.

All through my childhood I wanted to wear glasses, to the extent that I'd rub my eyes until they were scarlet. Sadly I had to wait over forty years before an optician would agree to write me a prescription.

Preparatory Sketch

I had primed my canvas, actually a cheap sheet of A3 cartridge paper, with bold streaks of green. At the same time I had been working on a revival of a 1950s musical, Salad Days, which required a good deal of florid flora as a backdrop. I guess I was still in that groove – stencilling leaves I'd found outside onto my background to cheer up the nuclear bunker chic of the Scout Hut.

The model's body was curious and, in some ways, bizarre. When standing she seemed improbably skinny, but when seated her body adopted tough tire-like rings - as if her exo-dermis was fashioned from thick neoprene.

Evey minute she wasn't in pose she was on the phone, looking worried, speaking in hurried, hushed tones. The subsequent weariness deepened the lines on her face and the distance of her gaze telescoped to infinity. I think a sense of this unease shows in this picture...