Wheels in motion

"I really enjoyed the experience of being painted by Helen,” says Mike. “It’s one of those kind of things that you could get a little bit troubled about, someone sitting there with you for two days. But Helen is incredibly engaging. She knows the questions to ask.

“I think with painters it is not just the technical craft. They can see right inside what you’re thinking. And she was very good at getting that information out of me and chatting and putting me at my ease. It was two really great days.

“We have been with Armstrong Watson at least since 1947. I think it’s really important to value loyalty, especially in a town the size of Carlisle. It feels like you are part of the community. You are part of something bigger than just you as an individual.

“We have clearly had good advice from Armstrong Watson. It has worked really well over the years right up to the present day with Grant (Smith) and his team who are great. I can ring them about anything concerning my business and they know my business inside out.

“I like also their rather sober attitude to business. It is always good, sensible advice I get from them. I appreciate that an awful lot. And it has gone back for three generations now.”

Helen says: “There’s a fair amount of Naples Yellow in this portrait – it’s one of my favourite pigments and I used it to show the effect of bright light coming in through the windows. You can see it, particularly in the highlights on Mike’s face and hands.

“We are both early birds, so for the second day of the sitting, Mike and I met up at his Carlisle base so I could start drawing before the working day had started.

“I will always remember the blue sky and a beautiful light that shone down Botchergate and right across us, as I was finishing my drawing study.”

Of the whole project, Helen says: “This group of portraits is like a memory bank for me! As a group, I think you can tell they are each very defined characters and very individual.

“You can see the sitters don’t look similar and they aren’t in the same situations at all, and yet, they each carved out the time and pushed away the distractions they had in order to be able to have a connection with a painter, and a body of work.

“For me, that is what this series shows - a group of memorable humans connected by their ability to

connect with the wider world and captured in paint because of that ability.

“Family business people are busy and welcoming at the same time - it’s a really admirable pair of qualities to be able to pull off.

“I would often sit on the train back home from a sitting, drawing pad under my arm, my hands covered in graphite and my legs tired from standing up all day, and it felt like my life was part of an amazing story.

“Thank you for having me! This project greatly developed my painting skills as a portrait artist - and I am a different artist to the one that set out ten months ago. I cannot wait to see what happens next.”

<center><b>Click on the pictures below to see the completed portraits:</b></center>