#Portraitsfornhsheroes is an initiative instigated by Oxford based portrait painter, Tom Croft.

It connects artists, through social media, with NHS workers, their family or close friend, during the Covid-19 pandemic, to enable an artist to paint their portrait as a gift to them.

Coming from a design background, if I have time, I welcome the challenge of commissions & working with a customer to fulfil their bespoke 'brief'. For portraits, I can work from life but I'm just as happy to work from one or a combination of photographs to capture the essence of a person.

My studio is close to Foxton Locks, which means that part of my day is spent walking along the canals, and seeing the seasons change and reflect in the water. It is very beautiful, but it wasn't until 2019 that I found a way to really do it justice.

Once I had discovered the technique of mixing cold wax medium into my oil paint, I started to paint the canals daily. The process meant using a silacone bowl scraper to paint with, rather than a brush, and enabled me to avoid the detail and focus on the larger composition of dark and light. The depth of shadows, with the beauty of the reflections shimmering on the surface tension, still fascinate me daily.

The roses outside my back door run along an old shoulder height wall and in the winter they are pruned back severely. I sometimes think they will never recover. But year after year they outdo themselves! They are glorious!

One of the themes that seems to run through my work is the desire to put colour into things that are white. If they still come across as being white to the viewer then I have succeeded. I have always loved white roses, their purity and beauty, the way they, if you look carefully, reflect the colours around them

I completed the rose paintings below on a feeling. It was the feeling of complete joy they give me, with their elegant stems and array of shades within the white petals and buds full of potential. These stems climb high above the wall so that I have to peek through them to see the rest of my garden- I think they call it ‘viewing life through rose tinted spectacles’. Fine by me!

More recently I have developed a passion for lavender and paint it as often as I can.

All of these paintings have sold, but can be re-painted in a similar way on a commission basis. So, if there's something you particularly like and you would rather have your own original than a print, then just email me at: [email protected]