Daventry district artist takes part in Sky TV contest

David Douglas this month appeared in Sky Arts’ Portrait Artist of the Year painting Brit and Hollywood actor Freddie Highmore, who has played leading roles in films ranging from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Finding Neverland.

Last year David won the exhibition prize in the Artist Magazine competition, which will see his work shown in an exhibition entitled “The Artist’s Collection” at the Patchings Art Centre in Calverton, Nottinghamshire from October 14 to November 19t

Portrait Artist of the Year is now available Sky Arts On Demand, when you can watch David create his portrait of Freddie, although sadly he didn’t make it through to the semi-final this time.

This series will see more than 20 celebrity sitters for the competing heats. The first episode featured Stanley Tucci, Indira Varma and Freddie Highmore. In the subsequent weeks, viewers will see Richard E Grant, Sue Perkins, Rick Wakeman, Nina Sosanya, Phil Davis, Trevor Eve, Lesley Manville, Sian Phillips, Adrian Chiles, Katie Kissoon, Dave Myers, Raleigh Ritchie, Parminder Nagra, Ben Okri and James Norton.

Imelda Staunton sat for the Semi-Final which will air in the 7th week of the show and the week after is the Final with Tom Courtney. The Prize portrait commission for the winning artist was revealed on New Year’s Eve as television presenter and comedian Graham Norton.

Each of the celebrity sitters got to choose one of the finished portraits to keep for themselves – regardless of whether that artist went through to the next stage. According to previous artists, that’s the beauty of the show - that the ‘taking part’ has been life changing for their business and profile.