Man in Blue Upstages Sir Joshua

YOU were warned. I'm now into a line-drawing phase, using colour on a single feature to contrast with the stark black and white background.

In fact, it's remarkable how a fleeting impression of something or someone unusual can overpower everything else.

My Midland Red Bus picture is a case in point. So is this image, Man in Blue Suit at a City Art Gallery.

The inspiration was a recent visit to the Royal Academy in London, where a man in vivid blue suit and matching bowler hat for some reason outshone Sir Joshua Reynolds, Anthony Van Dyck and our old friends Canaletto and Caravaggio. He was so ridiculously incongruous that I couldn't get him out of my head.

At first I thought he might have been a street thespian or a circus ringmaster.

But, no, he was simply an ordinary punter with a flamboyant taste in clothes.

Anyway, here he is. I hope he meets with your approval.