The Chef – Bilbao (2022)

He was working at an open wood oven and looked for all the world like a tortured Saint from a painting by Zurbaran.

CHARACTER STUDIES (TRONIES)

A tronie Dutch Golden Age painting Flemish Baroque painting face is a type of work common in and that depicts an exaggerated or characteristic – not portraits but studies of an interesting character such as an old man or woman, an artist or a person of a particular race. I have a habit of making quick sketches of fellow patrons in bistros and trattoria – I later turned these into equally rapid oil sketches. I always draw interesting faces and only men – if you look intently but surreptitiously at a woman people can draw the wrong inference.