“Tea break” A cuppa does so much more than top up your liquids. When shared with another its time for warmth and companionship. When drank alone it is a time to daydream relax and reflect. In times of anxiety a sweet cuppa is sometimes suggest for calming. A tea break from a busy day perhaps. This portrait creates so many situations just from the cup of tea itself.

With Irlen Syndrome my span of focus is incredibly small so it’s difficult to see how eyes, noses and mouths, tones etc look next to each other. So from time to time I photograph it to view it on a small phone screen. Imagine your vision is like looking at a fried egg. You see all the egg but actually focus where the yoke is. The fried egg that I see has a greater white area of the egg compared to the yoke so you certainly couldn’t dip the corner of your toast in it ! (2.5cm vision span). Reading paragraphs is quite difficult as I only read two words at a time, so nothing makes sense when you don’t pause just for the comers. If I get any books for Christmas I’ll still be reading them by next year! This portrait was drawn free hand because the grid drawn one strangely had less of a likeness. Beginning stages of this watercolour portrait above (the finished version is below which has oil paints added for the hair and background). I’m glad that I can use a watercolours / oil paints combination as I’m finding oil paints far more challenging than watercolours. 

Mixed media of oil paints and watercolour paints, portrait ‘Tea break’ size A3 by Sophie Huddlestone, now completed after a couple of weeks of drawing and painting.