Masks

Exhibition drawings in Metalpoint, rich in detail can take anything up to 200 hours or more to complete and consist of more than a million stylus marks. Because my artistic style tends towards photorealism, I usually work from photographs taken in my studio. With photographers, once the image is printed out their work is finished. With an artist, this is merely the starting point. What you are about to attempt requires an entirely different set of skills over those of photography. If the paper is properly protected these goldpoint drawings will last for thousands of years.

The coloured images are created in 24K goldpoint, watercolour and 24K gold leaf shaded with acrylic glaze. Since they begin as pure goldpoint drawings, they are best described as “colourized goldpoints”. They take even more time to complete than the most detailed traditional metalpoint

A very beautiful feature of a metalpoint is that when light is reflected off the surface, it takes on the lustre of the metal used. My drawings in gold may look like B&W photographs, but when tilted at the right lighting angle, they shimmer in halos of golden light, as can be seen in the double image of “Mysterioso” below.