“Sitting Bill” Artist, by a known Bull Sitter (artist???)

The first of two posts today and this one is a tribute to a mate’s talent.

First off a disclaimer:- I Don’t like Bill, I mean how could any bloke like him, he paints superbly, is a talented entertainer, always willing to help anyone with work around the house, he does everything his wife asks him to do. If I have heard it once I have heard it a million times “Why can’t you be more like Bill???” and I guess all of our male friends have had to suffer this litany too, who would like him?

That having been stated, Talent will out. Around retirement age, he was approached by his very young granddaughter, who wanted to take up painting. So Granddad got all the gear together and they set off on this new adventure.

As is the way with small children her interest soon turned to other things but Bill found that this new activity (for him) had something he liked so he persisted with it. The rest is history, I am in awe at what he is able to achieve and took it on myself to show a lot more people, the talent I have seen.

From a photographic point of view, this exercise posed some interesting challenges, the main one being that the paintings on display in a local library meant that I had to take the shots at strange angles and had to square them up in the oddest ways, but I think I did a good job.

The next challenge was how to include my “At Work” portraits in the presentation and it nearly drove me balmy. Then it was a case of Karen Brockney to the rescue, with her post on the layer actions that gave me just what I wanted.  HERE is the link to her layer masks action in PSE. (Thanks Karen!)   She has given me a better way to do what I wanted, but I am happy with the results I achieved with my first use of Layer Masks.

I suggest enlarging this so that you can inspect the art individually and if anyone is interested in purchasing Bill;s paintings just contact me and for a small commission I will put you in touch with him, if he is still talking to me that is!

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