Lily Mae Martin, 2018, charcoal, conte and white pastel on 

fawn paper, 52.75 x 36.75 cm

Lily Mae is an excellent artist who specialises in drawings, mainly in ink. As I was drawing her, I concentrated on the head only, but her arms and hands looked so good I turned the paper over and started again. I drew her head much smaller this time, to allow for the inclusion of her hands. But I had to ask her to come back for a second time to do them. Of course, as usual, it's impossible to hold a pose and not have some slight movement, so you need to be able to invent a little as the fingers slightly shift from their initial position. Of always loved the red chalk drawings on coloured papers by artists from the Renaissance, and this has inspired me to adopt their approach to mediums in this series of profile portraits.