The Knitting Group by John Hunter

Lovely character portrayals here, John. Natural poses, lifelike yet subtle. The celloist looks as though he's got his eyes on the glamorous violinist rather than the score! Possibly a trick of the light, but gives the picture a story, as they all do. Well done, great work.

Great painting; lots of stories going on there but it has me a little worried. I just got invited to join a "KNIT AND NATTER" group and am now wondering why it's always ladies of a "certain age"!!!!!"!

Love the 'buzz' of this painting - you can almost here those knitting needles clicking and the tounges wagging - great painting John.

Locally these are called Stitch and Bitch groups and they meet in the local pub! LOL A great series of paintings with lovely expressive faces and brilliantly painted hands.

Oh definaately stitching and bitching - love this and that poor woman who seems left out, so many stories here. Simply brilliant

i love this painting john, it`s well composed, well painted, and very interesting, well done

Super series of paintings. Loads of interest, humour and beautifully painted.

This made me laugh and so did these comments! My mother in law runs a Knit and Natter group and I've been forbidden from refering to it as the stitch and bitch mob!! lol. What a marvellous painting, I'm not surprised it won the public vote!

Thank you all for your responses to my Knitting group picture. They are called 'Stitch & Bitch Circles in the USA I am told. This one meets in a local pub.My aim was to show interaction between the knitters. It took a lot of choosing and composing work based on 130 photos taken without interrupting the ladies... (with their permission of course). The comment on the celloist belongs to the first Purcell orchestra painting . This painting was well received too being the runner up in the public's eye! Straight portraiture is a lot easier than working out this sort of picture!

I agree with all the above comments, you can almost hear the clicking of needles, and the expressions on thier faces brilliantly painted. Super gallery.

John I love this, I only found it when trying to set up a website and if you google it comes up on pinterest under my name so I dont know how that happened but maybe you might be able to fix it. It is a wonderful painting with lots of stories and beautifully observed and painted