CHRIS TITLEY paints a portrait of TV artist Alan Hydes, Yorkshire's man of many faces.

ALAN Hydes is one of Britain's best known painters. Thanks to his series Celebrity Portraits, which began on Yorkshire TV before being networked across ITV1, he is probably the best known brush-wielder after Rolf Harris.

And Rolf is a fan - if the old adage about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery holds true.

"What I have heard on the grapevine is that Rolf Harris has seen the series and is feverishly working away on a portrait series of his own," said Alan.

So what does he think of Rolf? "Everyone expects me to say I think he's rubbish. I don't particularly like his painting but he's done so much for the art world."

Before Celebrity Portraits began, Alan had already been commissioned to paint some famous faces - his friend Jilly Cooper was delighted with her image because Alan "made me so much more attractive and charming than I actually am".

This work led to an appearance on Yorkshire TV news magazine Calendar, and afterwards a producer suggested a new kind of talk show where Alan would chat to well known figures as he painted them.

It proved so popular a combination that the series soon went nationwide. So far Alan has painted several Coronation Street stars, including William Roache, who plays Ken Barlow, and Bill Tarmey (Jack Duckworth). Other celebrity subjects were Dame Thora Hird, Ricky Tomlinson and Sir Bernard Ingham.

Hosting a chat show isn't easy and painting someone's portrait requires huge concentration. Learning to do both at once "was very, very tricky," he admits.

To make the filming day less intense, he would travel over to his subject's home weeks before to meet them, do some drawings and take photographs.

On the big day, the sitter is usually more anxious than the artist, Alan said. "I always find that first thing in the morning people turn up and they're quite guarded.

"I am always really relaxed - telly doesn't faze me - so I natter away to them until they are at their ease.

"We go to the pub at lunchtime, have a couple of pints. By the time you go back in the afternoon some of these people have completely forgotten the cameras are there. They start telling you things they wouldn't normally say on television."

Meanwhile, he is trying to capture their essence on canvas. "With a portrait, you have got to bring out the essential character of the person.

"It's not a matter of doing a photographic image. There's no point - you might as well take a photograph.

"It's getting the way their eyes twinkle, or it might be the way they hold their mouth: something that goes to the person, to their individual personality."

Does he have to enjoy a special chemistry with his subject? Not necessarily. "I have painted people I haven't particularly liked, but they had got particularly interesting faces."

His sitters are generally delighted with the finished results, including most of those fragile showbiz egos. But not all.

"People have these impressions of themselves which isn't necessarily the way they look. I have had one instance with a particularly famous TV personality who at the time thought it was a wonderful portrait.

"And then they rang me back and said 'I think my cheeks are a bit fat and my shoulders are a bit chunky. Couldn't you take a bit off?'

"I said, that's the way you look: do you want to look like Tom Cruise or like yourself?"

Alas, Alan wouldn't reveal the name of the self-deluded star.

He believes everyone can have a go at portraiture, and his new book takes budding artists step-by-step through the process.

"Little kids do portraits of their mum and dad, with great big heads and little bodies.

"I think anyone can do it. The key to it is understanding how to draw in the first place. Drawing is a language. You can't say something if you don't know the language."

Alan started learning how to express himself artistically when he was a boy of about nine. His sister Margaret was at York Art School.

"She inspired me. We were living on a farm at a place called Kilham, halfway between York and Bridlington.

"The farm was quite isolated and there was nobody my age around and my sister was ten years older than me. I was Billy No-mates really. I had to do something with my time.

"My sister used to bring her drawing book from art school and I'd think it was fantastic. She brought pencils home and I'd draw everything from sheep to apples."

This early draughtsmanship gave him a head start when he won a place at Birmingham College of Art. After graduating with first class honours, he toured India before returning to the Birmingham college as a lecturer.

From here he got his first break into television when he was asked to front the arts show Hurdy Gurdy, made by BBC Pebble Mill. Later he moved back north and now lives in Leeds.

He is working on a book of botanical art. As for television, he would love to turn Celebrity Portraits international. The Pope would be on his target list, as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber. "Everybody says he's a really ugly little man. In actual fact, when you see him in the flesh he's got really good eyes and his face is quite interesting."

Spoken like a true portrait painter.

Celebrity Portraits: practical tips on painting portraits by Alan Hydes is published by Collins, price £16.99. Alan's website is www.alanhydes.co.uk

You can meet Alan at a booksigning event at York Art Gallery between noon and 2pm on November 21. Signed prints of his picture of Exhibition Square, York, will also be on sale then at a discounted price.

Updated: 08:56 Saturday, November 08, 2003