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John Lyons' Artist Biography
The Artist: John Lyons (b.1963) is the creator and artist for Art2Show, a showcase for his creative artworks. John is currently living in Stokesley, on the border of North Yorkshire and Teesside and working as a full time professional photographer (Cameraclix) though he has been an artist all his life. John sketches with charcoal and paints, mainly in oil or acrylic on canvas, taking commissions from his early 20's. He worked, exhibited & taught Life Drawing in Oxford during his 30's, where started his continuing study of the female form. Not knowing how to ask a woman to pose naked for him, he advertised in London's "Time Out" magazine with the phrase "Dare To Bare?" and his phone number. Many ladies of all different shapes, sizes and ages responded and thus he became a "Nude Artist". He still prefers to work with ladies who've never modeled nude before, in the knowledge that the application of a bit of "daring bravado" is as good for the creative process as it is for the light-hearted nature of a sitting. John Lyons has worked with a whole range of ladies from timid 18 year old students to several grandmothers in their 60's wanting to do something daring to remind themselves they're still alive!
Moving to Stockport in 2001 John set up a photo & art studio-gallery amongst the Vernon Mill Artists. In photographic art he developed his unique brand, called GirlzART , where he creates Fine Art Nudes from totally normal 18-60 year old women, producing pictures capable of hanging in the public art galleries that have exhibited him. Whilst developing GirlzART he continued to paint and experimented with mixed media. He had a year painting nudes in quick setting cement skimmed on to a stretched canvas, then applying acrylic paints and inks on to the still wet cement to produce a "fresco" on the surface. This technique was featured in a weekly regional magazine (The Manchester Metro) when their arts correspondent came and posed nude for John (a sell-out exhibition followed). Shortly after this, John's studio and fun teaching style were featured on Channel 5's programme "How Not To Decorate" with John teaching Justin & Colin, the celebrity presenters, how to draw and paint from a reclining female nude. (re-broadcast May 2011). John has been keen to experiment and change his style of creating art to maintain a quality and creative product that the public still want to buy (he has pictures listed on the online gallery of Saatchi, the famous London collector). John has painted many canvases to explore colour, texture and elements of conflict with and without the use of the female form. He has used the nude body as his canvas on which to paint a design as "body-painting", which when combined with his photographic background, allows him to effectively paint "big" ladies into "thin" ladies (without any digital manipulation). He had a young lady who used to enjoy coming for upper body painting, only to then go night clubbing without wearing her top. Though she was topless, with the painting, she would "appear" clothed! John has also worked with his colleague James Collins to produce glass-fusion art pieces. John was commissioned by the leaders of a church in Glasgow to design and create a large sheet of fused glass to depict "The Passion of Christ". This is now displayed on the wall of the church. John has also produced plaster-casts from the upper body of the naked female form, to produce busts and casts of pregnant bumps to be kept as momento's and wall-art. These methods of body-painting & body casting are now becoming popular with younger women wanting a cast of their breasts or posterior before having children. There have even been enquiries from men wanting to preserve their muscular torso's. Please call John and talk to him about your artistic requirements of if you'd like to come to the studio to take part in a life drawing group or individual tuition. John is friendly, approachable, flexible and creative. He believes that real and original UK art should be available and accessible to all...not just the rich or famous. John can't understand why people would buy a print, which is one of many identical copies, when unique and original UK art art is so readily available to adorn your walls? Please call John Lyons on +44(0)7946 477005 Updated November 2012. 
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Life Drawing/Painting
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