"I'm not sitting for you any more Raymond - I've had enough. It's time consuming, boring and you always manage to make me look like a fucking monkey."
The only practical way out of this impasse was to use photographs, and most of my recent portraits have been painted in this way. But some would say (and have said) it's simply slavish copying.
So, I decided I'd try to introduce an element of emotion into this recent portrait of Russian dancer Rudolph Nureyev. It's done from a monochrome photo, but I've introduced colour and added quite a few years to his age from when the picture was taken.
