Self-portrait (Triptych)

Excellent work Thea. Masterful portrayal of mood and character. I look forward to seeing more of your work

I agree with Jane.This is excellent Thea, masterpiece painting. Many congratulations

how wonderful for you to be selected. Well done!

Excellent work, congratulations

Congratulations, very well done! Super work.

Thank you so much for all your comments. If you are in London at all over from the 16th June to the 18th September, please go and visit the BP Portrait Award 2011 at the National Portrait Gallery. It is free to get in and such a great exhibition.

Self portraits are extremely difficult to achieve I only ever tried once and made an awful mess of it so never wanted to do it again as there are much better looking people than I to paint or sketch, Keep up the good work. eaves.

A marvellous group of paintings.

Congratulations on your considerable achievement. I enjoy the look on your face in these paintings - the intense concentration, plus a certain element of anxiety. Very well painted in a medium which normally yields to oil in expressiveness. Apart from anything else, it shows how far acrylic paint has moved from the plastic appearance remarked upon recently: it's capable of so much more expressiveness than that these days - in the right hands. Yours clearly are the right hands. An entirely impressive achievement.

Wow what an achievement. Many congratulations. This certainly deserves the honour,

Excellent work, congratulations.

Amazing work!!

Wow! Fantastic achievement. Well done for being selected. You deserve it. Jx

Congratulations. Wonderful paintings.

I cannot add anymore to the well earned praise above except to say congratulations on a job very well done.

Great paintings- I was just browsing and they jump out at me. Unnerving to have three of you looking at me - the eyes are looking at me in the two on the left but seem very introspective in the the third.Reminded me of Stanley Spencer.Strange occupation-self portraits these make me look at myself and also question whether I could be as honest as you have been-they are rigorous. It would be absolutely thrilling if you posted any preparatory sketches or maybe you took some pictures as you worked on them. Thanks for posting them really interesting stuff.

How strange with us being namesakes and both having self-portraits in the Top Ten! However, mine is poor offering compared to the brilliance of your work, as the accolades demonstrate. What a wonderful honour to be chosen for the NPG - you must be thrilled - so well deserved as well as this is an astonishing trio of paintings.

Many congratulations for your top ten, this is a superb painting

Great work of course Thea, do you find working at the level that you do a tortuous task? Just wondered looking at the expressions on your face in these 3 images, the exactness of your paintings must take such concentration, and to get such detail into them is beyond most of us, and seriously trying to achieve this would drive us mad, but here for you it works, you must have been born with a great talent possibly nutured by classical fine art training as well.

Hi Ros, I have to say I think this one did drive me mad slightly, I had just been ill with the flu and as soon as I was feeling a bit better I decided to paint these. I think these were the toughest of my paintings to paint as trying to repeat them three times and so they looked as if they belonged together, matching skin tones, hair tones, jumper etc was so so hard to do. I never had fine art training at school and only ever tried it out in my art foundation year. I actually come from a printed textiles background but my parents are both artistic my dad a graphic designer and my mum fine art. She has always painted portraits so I grew up watching her paint, it must be in our blood. Thank you for your kind comments, Thea x

I saw these in the flesh last week. Very impressed! I wasn't keen on the winner, but that is always a matter of taste.

Your portfolio is fantastic, and above approach Penna. I love your work.