The portrait came about when I was teaching a student. The time came for the lessons to progress to painting a real sitter, and it seemed like a good idea for Justin to sit for us. All I had to pay him with was tea & biscuits, and a steady diet of classic rock music. I started out with a preliminary sketch of his face, but my student was a slow worker, so while I waited for her to finish her drawing, mine expanded to take in the torso, the arms, and then the legs. The final sketch was a large Heath Robinson affair, drawn onto sheets of paper that could be disassembled, moved around and re-attached when the proportion and perspective was how I wanted it. Justin is possessed of a keen mechanical mind, so he was interested in the construction methods I was employing, and wanted to understand as much about them as possible. He was also a fan of the fireplace, and admired how the panels had been cast separately, the front of the borders milled flat so that they could be inserted from the rear of the surround.

Since the portrait was completed, much of what features in the picture has changed. I no longer live in the flat where the portrait was painted. The cast iron fireplace was my favourite feature of the flat. The rug was taken to the tip when it became obvious that my girlfriend’s rugs were a superior option for our new house and studio. The decorating job that first introduced us (as evidenced by the dust sheet that is down to protect the carpet from paint) is thankfully a thing of the past, and I am now a full-time artist. The work clothes that Justin wears in the painting are from the building suppliers, but Justin no longer works there.
So whatever this portrait means to anybody else, for me this portrait is the record of our friendship, and a reminder of the mercurial shift of time. It's also the nearest I got to smuggling the lovely cast iron fire surround out of that flat.'