This interview first appeared in the HNUK newsletter number 39. I would like to thank Gwen and Kevin for letting me use the interview (and the photos - thanks Kevin!!) on this page.

Further images can be viewed at the Laura's Cavern website (Gone, formerly users.zetnet.co.uk/suehaley/kevin.htm)  

Thank you for agreeing to this interview. I welcome you to the world of "Helpers Network UK".
Thank you. It's wonderful to read the newsletter and see that there's still so much enthusiasm and activity out there. I feel like Devin sometimes - I tend to drift in and out of the tunnels, but whenever I come back to visit the candles are always burning. It's amazing.

When did you first start painting? Was it as a child, or was it later in life?
I had no conscious passion for art per se as I was growing up, but I think it's always been a part of who I am. I was always drawing pictures of the things that interested me throughout childhoud and adolescence. Being naturally shy and somewhat introverted when I was young, I think that art was my way of expressing myself, in a covert kind of way. I didn't start painting seriously until my first year of college, though.

Do you do your unique paintings, with such fine detail, in watercolors, oils or spray? Which media do you use or prefer?
Almost all my work now is in oils. I've experimented with just about everything - - from acrylics to watercolor to airbrush - but oils just seem to be the most comfortable to me. They're very forgiving, and you can really take your time and work them over and over until you get it just right, as opposed to something like watercolor which you can't really alter once it hits the surface. The only real drawback I've run into with oils is the drying time, but even that's not much of a hindrance to me because I paint rather thinly.

Do you do many sketches first, then start the project, or do you go straight in without sketches?
I always start out with thumbnail sketches, which are very small pencil drawings on paper, but other than that I don't do a great deal of preliminary work. Once I get a concept for a painting and get it roughed out on paper, I just want it to be done, I want the painting to be there. I'm very impatient in this way. But then painting is a process that cannot be rushed, so I just have to sort of dive into it and work as hard as I can for as long as it takes to make it all come together. Usually I'll take my thumbnail sketch and enlarge it to the final size on a copy machine and then trace it onto the canvas or panel I'm working in. From there on it's all about painting.

How long does it usually take to do a painting from start to finish?
I've had pictures that have sort of germinated in my mind and been worked around in sketches for years before I actually got them completed on canvas. But the time it takes from the moment my brush hits the canvas until the painting is done usally ranges from about one to two weeks, maybe 60 to 100 hours, depending upon the size of the piece and the colplexity of the imagery. Any longer than that and I tend to start pulling out large handfuls of hair - which at my age I can ill afford.

Do you have a studio you work from, or do you work on your art wherever you can?
We have a fairly large master bedroom in our family home, which I have converted into a studio/artist's loft. Spacious, yet quite cosy.

Your art is so detailed that it is almost like a photograph. To get these two characters so accurate, you must love the series like we the fans do, as you seem to get inside the characters.
Oh yes. Absolutely. Actually my love for Beauty and the Beast even pre-dates my commitment to art. I can remember watching the show the night the pilot first aired. I loved the whole look and mood of the show, but when Vincent gave that little soliloquy about aloneness on Catherine's balcony, when he brought her the copy of Great Expectation -- I was hooked. In Vincent I found a soul brother, and in his relationship with Catherine I saw the kind of love I've always wanted, and still hope for to this day.

By the time I really started to take art seriously, these characters were so ingrained in my psyche that painting them, using them as a vehicle for expressing what was in my own heart, came very naturally. Painting Vincent is almost like painting a self-portrait of my own soul (if only my soul were so handsome!)

For example, "Songs of Songs" (see image). The expression on Vincent's face is breathtaking, and one expects him to move and become real.
The photograph I was using as a reference on that one was just beautiful. I picked it up at a convention some years earlier, and was intending to incorporate it into a cover I'd been asked to do for Perlman and the Beast, an interview book that Ed Gross was doing with Ron Perlman. Unfortunately that was one of many exciting Cinemaker Press projects that never saw the light of day. But I hung on to that photo of Vincent. Some time later, i was wanting to do a new painting for an upcoming convention I was attending (A Distant Shore - Los Angeles 1995) and so I sized the opportunity to finally put this stunning photo to good use. The result was "Song of Songs 8:6", and I was tremendously pleased by the response it received and continues to receive. As for the life you see in the painting, I think that's something that comes from somewhere beyond the beauty of the photo or and skill and training on my part. All life and beauty has its source in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I think that this beauty comes through to a greater or lesser extent in all the arts, in spite of (rather than because of) the artist's intent or fumbling hands. As acquainted as I am with the technical aspects of making art, I don't think I'll ever outgrow the sense of wonder over what sometimes manifests itself on canvas or on a screen or in a poem or a song. When I look at the history of the arts it's like a string of little miracles that God has given us. I think that allowing us to get these little tastes of creation, these little glimpses into transcendence through the arts, is his way of letting us know that he is the ultimate Artist.

Have you ever painted other characters from the series, like Paracelsus, Pascal, father, Mary, William, Elliot or Mouse?
I have incorporated a few of the others here and there. I painted Paracelsus on the cover of the first Cinemaker novels, Nan Dibble's Beyond Words, Beyond Silence, as well what was to be the third book, Bright Spirit Descending (which Nan later self-published as a fanzine, with my art reproduced in black and white on the cover). The painting for that cover also featured Father. I had painted Diana twice - once with vincent for the cover of Rhonda Collins' Legacy of Love, and another painting which was based on the Arthurian legend of Elaine, who died for her unrequited love of Lancelot. In addition, I did a pencil drawing for Gloria Handley's Jo Anderson Fan Club. Other pencil drawings I've done were a portrait of Laura and a sort of group portrait of almost the whole gang, which Rhonda Collins had reproduced on T-shirts.

Do you have a catalogue of your paintings that fans can send for, and if so, how much would it cost for USA fans, British fans and those in Europe?
I have no such catalog at this time. the first, one man showing of my art is going to happen in October of this year (1999, at the Art Gallery of Matthew G.Cruz in Santa Ana, California - just in case any of you happen to be in the neighbourhood) and we will be producing a full color brochure of the oieces in the show. That's a ways off now, but I'm sure I'll have some extra copies of that to share. I'd have to let you know about price and availability as the time draws nearer. For those who are on-line, just about every piece of Beauty and the Beast art I've ever created (plus a few extra odds and ends) can curently be viewed at the Laura's cavern website. I have recently seen the site myself for the first time and I was very impressed with the was Sue Haley has pt it all together.

Will you be attending the Florida convention in July 1999, L.A. in 2000 and N.Y.C. in 2001? I'll be at the Florida convention, so can I expect to see you there?
Unfortunately, an abundance of work and a shortage of funds will keep me from Florida this year. I was hoping to at least get some new artwork done by then to send along for the art show, but since all the paintings for my October showing have to be completed by the end of July, I'm uncertain now if I will have the time. I hope so.

As for L.A. in 2000, I definitely plan on being there, Lord willing. Anything beyond that is out of the realm of specualation for me right now. As another artist once said, "I never plan anything if i can help it."

Thank you, Kevin, for giving up your time to share with us some of the questions so many of us wanted to ask you.
It was my pleasure. thank you, and all the others in fandom, who have been so kind to me and supportive of my work.

Please keep on painting, to keep the dream alive.
Well, I seem to be good for little else in the world but painting and dreaming, so I'd better work hard at both, hadn't I.

And here is some more Additional Data :

Married : No

Single? Painfully

Children? I am my only child

Brothers or Sisters? One older sister

Did you attend art college? No, I'm largely self-taught, having learned from studying works of artists I admire (the pre-Raphaelite, Symbolists and Art Nouveau painters of the late 19th century, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John William Waterhouse, Alphonse Mucha Klimt, Fernand Khnopff, John Singer Sargent, etc)

Which school did you attend? I received my Associate of Arts degree from Golden West College, a small community college in Huntington Beach, California.

 

Some of Kevin's wonderful paitings - For more work, visit Laura's Cavern (see link above

"Song of Songs 8:6"

"The Blessed Damozel"