Well, I still find myself pinching myself that I actually did paint The Seekers because they are a part of my youth and history. And it was a great honour. Because Jude – I’d painted Judith the year before and she had seen fit on the basis of that to ask me to paint the whole group. It was an enormous thing to take on, but I did it and I'm happy, very happy with the result.
It was difficult because they're busy, busy people surprisingly, 50 years on, they're still running around doing what they do. And to get that sort of time with them that I needed was quite a challenge because I needed to accumulate a lot of references – sketch references and photo references – to put together a painting that sort of worked for me. But they were very cooperative and allowed me some time, particularly one day when they were rehearsing all day, I was able to stand and be with them and watch them in action and watch them interacting together, because it was very important to me to get a sense of the relationships between the members of the group. And I saw the fun and the love that exists between them.
I went home with all my references, and I basically painted it in my studio. It took me many, many weeks to finish it. But yes, it was a long process but a nice one.
I guess I'm trying to show the unity of the group, the longevity of them in the sense that they still have a look of pride in what they do. They still have style and colouring the way that present themselves – flair – and yeah, all of that still there. I mean, I still see them now as they came to me 50 years ago. So yeah, I suppose that's what I tried to show most of all. I painted that, sort of in the sort of sepia tones, to sort of relate a little bit to the age aspect of it with the touches of colour just to lift it and, yeah.
