Another Day

This is Adam and Alex Scott, two brothers, and sons of my cousin Mark Scott. I have met them a couple of times whilst they were visiting Taranaki with their father. Alex, I believe is now working in IT, and Adam is still at school.  Adam was recently in the news, when he stepped in to save his friend from a schoolyard bully. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3459821/Sickening-video-shows-playground-bully-swinging-punches-disabled-boy-t-fight-crowd-boys-cheer-action.html I was pleased with the way this painting turned out. I have discovered that I like the dynamics inherent when you have more than one person in the picture. I believe that this original selfie was taken on their last visit to NZ. It looks like they were at the top of the Auckland Skytower.

This is my cousin Chris Scott. Younger brother of  Mark and son of Valerie and Malcolm Scott. This was an odd picture to paint. It seems to be an old photo taken some years ago, which has then been rephotographed, and now turned into a painting. I kind of like all these transitions of the original information. Each layer of transformation contains it's own distortions and artifacts, such as the flash of the camera on the righthand corner of the photo, and the key-holing effect of the original perspective. These all add up to give the image a kind of hallucinatory, or dreamlike quality. And it is kind of like how our minds skew and distort our past memories, I think. 

This is my cousin Mark, again, on my father's side. The son of my father's sister, Valerie, and Malcolm Scott. When I was still living in England in the early seventies, Mark was still a little boy, and I have memories of a large and exuberant child, who would leave our Nana Hutch rather exasperated, in spite of which she always had a soft spot for him!  Much later, I got to know Mark a little bit as an adult, on his several visits to New Zealand with his two eldest sons, Alex, and Adam. He works in IT and seems to travel the world quite a bit. He still has a bit of the childlike about him, as his profile pic with a lemon snowfreeze, or something, indicates! I had a bit of difficulty getting this one right and had to have two goes at it.

This is my cousin, Lesley. She is the daughter of my father's brother, my uncle Malcolm, and Auntie Margaret. Lesley is about the same age as me, I think, and she also has a younger brother, Michael, who is not on Facebook. They all still live in the North of England. During the years I was back living in England, I saw quite a bit of Lesley and Michael, and I went on several holidays with them to Scotland and Wales. My uncle Mac, was a very active outdoors kind of man, and he took us hiking and climbing. I have very fond memories of that time. Living on the other side of the world, I havn't seen much of my cousins since that time, although I have made a couple of short visits back.  Through Facebook I see that Lesley is still very fond of animals and nature, and seems to be interested in spiritual self awareness and personal growth.