The Big 5 Painting

I am a trained artist residing in Durban South Africa with my son. I was born in Port Elizabeth and I paint portraits, wild life, cityscapes, landscapes, seascapes . I paint commissions from photographs. I have 3 diplomas in Fine Art, the highest being National Diploma in Technology in Art from the Port Elizabeth Technikon. I have work in Canada, United States, London, Australia, Germany and of course South Africa. I love painting and I really enjoy the joy it brings to people. I believe art should be for everyone and not just the rich collector. I especially enjoy the reaction from my clients when they receive their painting. It brings healing to people that have lost their love one prematurely and the wife who commissioned me to paint a portrait of herself and her husband with 4 dogs and a cat. It was quite a challenge as the dogs were Great Danes that they have had for 8 years but died that year. Their death brought and emptiness and he wept when he received the painting. I had to use 7 photographs for that painting and it was a complex composition that worked. The portrait commissioned by Lucky Mthembu of the "Kings Men" brought tears to his eyes when he received as it was a dream realised after 5 years. He kept this folded up newspaper of this picture of the Zulu King and his men and Lucky wanted all the faces replaced with portraits of himself and his family members. It was such a clever idea and I had to size the faces and research what the Zulu traditional dress looked like as the newspaper clipping was not clear enough. This is an example of a working man who appreciates Art and his dream realised.