Scott

This is an old portrait of Scott, my housemate of the past 3 years, painted while the two of us were having a bit of an artistic painty session in our tiny back yard on a glorious sunny day way back in spring or early summer 2008. The painting stayed displayed on that spot where it was born, braving the worst elements, until we moved out a couple of months ago, at which point I took a few quick pics of it for the first time, before snapping him up. I realised I'd become quite attached to it, possibly more so than to any other image I've ever produced, come to think of it. I guess this is purely sentimental, due to the painting's link to the two great years spent in the house, but it's also partly, I think, because it's one of those very rare pictures of mine that was produced in a completely unconstrained, unselfconcious situation: splashing a bit of paint around on an old bit of wood just for the fun of it, listening to a bit of Taj Mahal in the sun.

The white outline on the figure is not my doing, but rather an inevitable vandalistic result of leaving an old piece of wood in the back garden for 18 months. However, it was annoying me a lot so for my own satisfaction I've crudely photoshopped the spraypaint out in the top image. Much better.

I recall that Scott and I vowed to have a painting session like this every week or so from then on, and Nathen, jealous at our paint-date, was going to join us next time. Inevitably though, 'proper' work and such took over and the time never came round again.