Here are  drawings from  photographs of people in the family history of my family. The lady is my grandmother and the old gentleman with the glorious whiskers is the great grandfather of my wife. One of these drawings may be my next painting in this series of portraits for the family tree.

The painting is about finished now, it needs to dry before I can do any more. The subject is Andrew Dryburgh, born in 1849 and died in 1929. He was a seaman and his claim to fame is that he was the ship's carpenter on the maiden voyage of the "Cutty Sark". He travelled around the world and lived for a time in Canada. He finally came home to Scotland and was the last harbourmaster of the, then, important harbour at Dysart in Fife.

I have done some more work on the face and started on the rest of the painting. I'm undecided about the background, I think that it will remain plain as the finished picture will be rather smaller than it is at the moment.

I have now started applying some colour to the face, just a few tones of yellow, red and brown still almost monochromatic in my approach.

George Dryburgh, who was born in 1778, was the grandfather of my subject Andrew Dryburgh, he was also my great,great,great,great,great grandfather. I don't know quite what that makes him to me in genealogical terminology.

I have done some more work on the face and it is now ready for some colour to be added. My only clue to colour is the fact that he was a seaman for most of his life and that he lived into his 80th year, I guess that he is not far off that in this picture.

This is the first go at a painting of Andrew Dryburgh. I am starting the painting in monochrome as my drawing and the original photograph are black and white. This will help me to establish the tones of the picture and create a good likeness before I have to think about the colour. It's an old established technique, paint the picture in monochrome, let it dry and then glaze over all the colours.

This is a sketch of a photograph of distant relation of mine. His name is Andrew Dryburgh and I am going to paint his portrait from this drawing and an old photograph. I will post copies of the painting as it progresses and I will post further information about him and his relationship to me

This painting, the second of my paintings on exhibition at the R.U.H. is a simplified and slightly abstract version of another of my paintings. The first painting showed a ringed plover sitting tightly on eggs. With a predatory Black-backed gull in the background.  In this simplified version the Plover has gone  leaving the four eggs unprotected and for the moment the gull is not there.