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A seasoned traveller, Henderson Cisz has spent time in Europe, Australia and of course his native South America. While he loves the ocean and has always found it a source of inspiration and joy, he is also a true city-dweller, and many of his most inspirational works feature scenes from the world’s most beautiful cities. Painting in acrylic, oil or watercolour on canvas, Henderson Cisz’s trademark palette utilises cool, soft tones to convey the atmosphere of his subject. His works are regularly displayed in London galleries and at international art fairs.

“I love the effect that weather has on the urban landscape and must confess to a particular fondness for the rain! Not only does it cast interesting shadows and reflections on the slick sidewalks, but it also dictates the stance of the figures. Their slightly defensive postures and hunched shoulders lend a very specific, and to my mind curiously engaging, mood to the overall scene.”

Citizen of the World

Brazilian-born wanderer Henderson Cisz loves to travel the world and paint the drama and diversity of urban life. From New York to Paris, from London to Venice he has formed an intense and loving artistic relationship with these living breathing cities. Although he may have finally settled in London, Henderson Cisz ’s nomadic past has left indelible imprints on his lifestyle, not to mention his artwork, as we can see by joining him for a few hours in the life of a truly cosmopolitan artist.

As early as 8am Henderson Cisz is already demonstrating the habits of a good New Yorker or Parisian, sitting back, legs crossed in a leisurely pose, enjoying a freshly ground coffee and a basket of croissants “en famille” in his local café. Then it’s off to school for the younger children and back to Henderson Cisz ’s delightful mews studio for him and his eldest son, who is currently going in every day to watch and learn both his father’s painting techniques and the art of studio management.

Observing Henderson Cisz at work is an education in itself. A charming and unassuming man, softly spoken and with a gentle sense of humour, he transforms when he stands before his canvas. Working from the many hundreds of photographs he takes in each location, his style is surprisingly uninhibited and the studio wall is strewn with riotous splashes of paint that have flicked from his animated brush. The room itself is equally chaotic, with rolled canvases stacked against the wall, interspersed with family photos, sketches and works in progress. Yet out of this apparent confusion emerges artwork that is beautifully resonant of the city it represents.

When he is not travelling, Henderson Cisz tends to spend the majority of his day painting in his studio which occupies a lovely West London setting close to the Thames.

Henderson Cisz art can be bought at Heart Galleries, a Staffordshire based art gallery.

I knew from an early age I had the ability to draw. But it was the ability to remember and learn by heart details that, when combined, became the future benchmark of the work I now produce. The stories told and retold as a child helped, in part, to create a palpable and lucid world deciphered only through the use of drawing.

At school I was very lucky to be taught by great art teachers. In fact, throughout my schooling my teachers have been very important. Their grounding, nurturing and kind devotion helped provide the push and inspiration to further my potential. I studied for a foundation course in art and design followed by a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design at Leeds Metropolitan University, specialising in illustration. After my three years I left the UK to ‘backpack’ around Latin America and Africa.

Travelling played a pivotal role in my creative work. Certainly giving me the freedom to develop my own ideas and in my own time. I returned to the basic art of drawing using only pen and paper; a process in which the virtues of simplicity unravel the sentiments. This has produced, in my opinion, my most honest and frank sketches to date. Even now when I look back at my sketch books they instantly take me back to my travels.

On returning to the UK I worked as a studio designer, serving a high profile company. As an artist, it was a certainly a complete contrast from the heady days of travelling and challenging at the best of times. To reign in on this fast-moving and often high-paced working atmosphere, I ditched the studio and took on freelance work for the next five years before starting a family and embarking on a career as a full time artist.

I still live in Keighley, Yorkshire and I am married with two young boys.

IDEAS & INSPIRATIONS

My ideas and inspirations are ever flowing. I can take a little or a lot from anything I deem to be influential in my work. From the spoken word, travel diaries, people watching and sometimes plain old contemplation. I have always had that ability to remember and ‘mentally’ jot down anything that interests me. Though I do carry a journal bursting at the seams with magazine and newspaper cut outs. Transferring this in my work can be easy but also at times, challenging. If I try to guide too much information into my characters they become complex and therefore difficult even for me to understand. Through painting my characters, I aim to invest into a personality that imbues the emotions of which everyone is privileged to.

I draw a lot of inspiration from the music I listen to or the books I read. I revel in the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez – in particular, A Hundred Years of Solitude. I have read and re-read the book. Each time I read it I am transported into a world full of spellbinding magic and imaginary so beguiling that it is hard not to be influenced by it. My mum’s stories have had the same effect. Her storytelling always left an ineffaceable impression of enchantment and magic, but more often than not subdued with sadness too. It seems fitting that my inspiration comes from those early days of listening to my mum.

FROM PALETTE TO PICTURE

I don’t assign to any formulaic way of painting my characters. Often I begin by painting on canvas a faint outline of my characters head and placing them low down on the canvas. At this stage I can do one of two things: firstly I can revert back to sketch books and pick a character that I may have doodled, or I can reign free and see where it will take me. The latter of the two always brings out a surprisingly different outcome often much more successful. My characters become apparent to me as they are being painted. A flick of the paint brush or the eccentricity of the hair can reveal a different character. In some case, the music I play whilst painting can steer me into a different direction.

I paint in oils on canvas which suits me very well, particularly as the medium gives you a lot of flexibility and direction. I loosely use the Renaissance technique of underpainting in order to achieve the depth in skin tone. Of course, glazing or adding colour is very time consuming, so I sometimes tend to forgo the layering and the glazing and adapt a different approach. I usually work on two or three paintings at one time. Working in oils gives me the freedom to make any alterations.

My painted little characters are presented like the typical portrait paintings of old; quite still and ordinary. Yet there is plenty about them that is peculiar. An unsettling charm made all the more apparent by their enigmatic gaze. They are vulnerable in scale, sharing neither their proportions or their features. Their sizable heads and characteristic hair, dominate the canvas, equalled only by the charming nervousness revealed within the peripheral ‘full stop’ eyes that stare blankly back. The absence of a mouth perhaps gives you the impression that they are essentially solitary and lonely characters, devoid of communication. But this is not to say they are unloved or isolated; rather they provide sentiments of hope joy, sadness and loss. Even as they are being painted, their characters become apparent to me; a snapshot of a moment or a feeling considered. They are in essence a tensely guarded connection to a benign world summoned by the passing of time. They are carefully preserved, given existence and above all loved.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF…

I have a frantic two hours in the morning when I need to get my children up and out of bed. My children collectively referred to as “The Monkey Boys” keep me busy. Each weekday morning I wake at 6.30am and get the boys ready for school and nursery. This is a great undertaking, particularly as I have to giggle my youngest down to the ground in order to try and get a sock or a shoe on. It never works and I constantly sit around waiting for celestial intervention. Unfortunately that seems to have little or no effect at all so it usually means giving up and hoping for the best!

After the ordeal I return home and tackle the mounting mess that awaits me. I make a cup of Earl Grey and walk upstairs to the top of the house and begin work. The first hour I look at the work from the previous day and make any changes necessary before beginning on the next painting. I often have a few paintings on the go and the use of oils is ideal to give me that amount of flexibility.

I can never work in silence. I grew up in a large family and so silence is something that is alien to me. I listen to the radio or sometimes play my own music. I find however, music can alter the outcome of my paintings depending on what I play so I tend to choose the music carefully.

I carry straight through to about 3.00pm and head off to pick “The Monkey Boys” up from school. In the winter this is usually the end of my working day as I don’t like to paint in dull light. In summer however I work late into the evening and “The Monkey Boys” usually play around me whilst I carry on painting. I don’t play any music when the boys are around because there isn’t the silence, just familiarity.

Shazia prints can be bought at Heart Galleries, a Staffordshire based art gallery.

When writing your marketing plan it’s important that you differentiate yourself from the competition by finding a real point of distinction. Just the way it’s critical that you have a unique product orservice to find success, it’s also essential that you approach your marketing in your own way. There are lots of ways you can creatively market your product, or else look for ways to approach things differently. Just be sure to write your marketing plan is such a way that it contains solid methods that will put you closer to your goals. There are enough evergreen marketing and advertising approaches that perform well if executed properly.

If you are not in the habit of reviewing your business, then you are missing out on opportunities for improvement and growth. What about the monthly breakdown of profit and losses for your business? Do you even track this data?

Do you know how to calculate these numbers, or do you use software? Of course a lot depends on your particular business model, but there are metrics that all businesses have and can use. If customer service is a part of your business, then do you know how well it performs? How well does your business perform with keeping new customers? Business and life are all about feedback and hopefully taking actions to improve as much as possible.

Let’s say you are planning an email marketing campaign. First of all, you need to make sure that you have a quality email list. If you don’t have your own email data then there are specialist email list companies where you can purchase business email lists at reasonable cost. Once you have your list you need to plan your email campaign carefully in order to get the best results. You should use an email sendout platform that includes tracking statistics, so that you can monitor the effectiveness of the email marketing campaign. This will give you very valuable feedback that you can use for future campaigns.

You should know the importance of timelines; show in your marketing plan when your activities incur any kind of costs and when clearly write the starting and as well as the ending point of each component. In a real way this plan will help to keep you accountable, and when you are working alone that can really be a big help. Another factor that you need to work on is control – build in effective controls into your plan that will allow you to keep track of your performance. There are a number of methods, and you just need to find what works best for you. In addition, be sure to give your self goals and expected results for each method you choose to use.

You really do need a marketing plan regardless of how small your business is. Just execute the process in the correct way, and it will not be as hard as it may sound.

A social media marketing campaign is about marketing, without a call to action it’s nothing. A strong and clear call to action is usually toward the end of your message, and it should never be left out. If you want to build a list by gathering leads, then social marketing is great for that. One thing about a call to action is it cannot be weak, but at the same time you cannot be rude about it either. Don’t be vague when calling your prospects to take an action – be straightforward and immediate. So many talk about Facebook all the time, and it is important, but we have to move on to the significance of YouTube. You have to choose your battles and marketing wisely, and that is just about maximizing your efforts. Your whole aim should be to take your social media marketing to a whole new level by using the appropriate network for your campaigns. Just think about what you are marketing, and even a service based business can easily benefit from video and YouTube. One thing we always live by is having the willingness to work harder and offer more to our audience, and that is a strategy that will rarely fail you. But do not forget about outsourcing, and that is the greatest way to leverage your time.

Successful social media marketing campaigns are dressed with the respective brand in every way. In other words, you should go beyond the rest when it comes to adding elements from your brand to your campaign. Anything that defines your business’s identity should be used in your campaign so that you clearly know where you’re headed, and your prospects know where you’re coming from.

How you brand your business means it has to be very relevant in some way with the product and niche. One thing about social media is the numbers for traffic can be so great that you can quickly make a huge impression and get branded fast.

You will find that very many aspects of social media marketing are similar to any other kind of marketing. For example, email marketing is similar in that you must target your audience carefully and also include a specific call to action in your email campaigns. It is also important that you obtain an accurate business email list so that you are targeting the right businesses.

The debt management plan works by consolidating all of the debtor’s monthly payments into a single affordable and realistic monthly repayment. Debt management takes into account the circumstances of the debtor and determines a realistic monthly payment amount. The calculation take into account the necessary monthly outgoings of the debtor including mortgage payments, rent, food and utilities and creates a repayment amount from the disposable income that remains. This means that the debtor’s earnings are protected for monthly essentials and only the remaining funds will be used to repay creditors. Moreover, as the debtor’s financial position changes for better or worse, the monthly payments can be adjusted.

The debt management service mediates between creditors and debtors in order to reach an agreement concerning the repayment of debts. Once agreement has been reached the debtor will pay a single monthly repayment to the debt management service which will then be forwarded onto the creditors. Moreover, after the agreement interest is usually charged at a reduced rate or even frozen altogether. Also, after the agreement is in place creditors cannot pressurise debtors into selling property or assets or encourage further borrowing in order to pay off their debts.

The free debt advice that is provided can help debtors to avoid their current situation in the future but also help them to manage the current situation in the best possible way. Such debt help can be invaluable in managing debts and maintaining a positive attitude while paying off debts and finishing the process of becoming debt free. Combined the assistance of a debt management plan, debt help can provide a final solution to debt problems and ensure that the situation is not recurring.

By taking control of debts, debtors can be sure to halt the spiralling process of numerous debts with numerous interest payments and numerous charges. By consolidating all debts under a single debt management plan debtors can ensure that monthly repayments are realistic and affordable without having to compromise the necessities in life. By keep up with the plan as laid out by debt management debtors can be sure to become debt free and the end of the period without having to put life on hold in the meantime. With additional debt management advice debtors can become debt free in the shortest possible period of time with the minimum amount of hardship and with peace of mind that the debt will not increase with additional interest or charges.

One option that is available to those in this precarious position is individual voluntary arrangements or IVA. The IVA provides an attractive alternative to bankruptcy and allows individuals to negotiate with creditors over the repayment of the remaining debt. The agreement will take into account the debtor’s monthly income and calculate a realistic monthly repayment from the debtor’s disposable income, thereby reducing pressures on the family’s basic living costs. Once agreed, the repayment scheme becomes a part of a legally binding contract which must be honoured by both parties. The debtor can still be forced into bankruptcy if they do not honour the new terms that have been agreed.

In order to take advantage of individual voluntary agreements the debtor must be at least £15,000 in debt. Payments are usually made over a five year period, after which up to 75% of the debt can be written off. However, an IVA can only proceed if 75% of the creditors to whom money is owed agree to the conditions. When taking up IVA advice debtors can benefit hugely and turn large, burdensome and unrealistic debts into manageable monthly repayments while allowing the family to maintain a reasonable standard of living.

IVA help is easily accessible and can make a real difference to the financial situation of an individual or a family. Once an IVA is agreed with creditors and made legally binding, they cannot add additional interest or charges to the debt as the agreement is fixed by law. The IVA offers a considerably more attractive alternative to the bankruptcy of an individual and all of the associated consequences and repercussions. Individual voluntary arrangements allow life to continue despite huge looming debts and remove the overhanging burden of constant financial constraint.

Individual voluntary arrangements can make a real and life changing difference for those who have considerable debts. By taking control of debts which loom over every aspect of life the debtor can regain some sense of financial control and can see an end to the current debt situation. IVA help can reduce debt considerably by writing off up to 75% of the debt after the five year period and ensuring that the debt cannot be increased through charges or additional interest. What is more, the debtor can have peace of mind that the IVA is legally binding and therefore changes cannot be made to it after it has been agreed.

For more information on debt help and advice why not visit The Financial Helpline website where you can find out much more about their services.

Terry Wogan‘s extensive television credits include his live chat show series ‘Wogan’ which he presented for seven years on BBC1, the Eurovision Song Contest, the National Lottery Live and Children in Need. In April 1972 he took over the breakfast show on BBC Radio 2, amassing an audience of up to 7.6 million.

In 1997, Her Majesty the Queen honoured him with an OBE, followed by an honorary knighthood in the 2005 birthday honours.

BBC Radio 2’s ‘Wake Up To Wogan’ was the most listened to programme on British radio. Regular listeners to the show were often referred to collectively as TOGs (Terry’s Old Geezers / Gals). The TOGs identified stereotypical traits of the elderly, such as absent-mindedness, cynicism and befuddlement at modern society’s habits. Wogan, as the archetypal TOG, was sometimes referred to as the “TOGmeister”.

Younger listeners were sometimes called “TYGs” (Terry’s Young Geezers/Gals); a frequent joke being that many TYGs were children forced to listen to Wogan’s radio show in the car while being driven to school. Often, younger listeners getting in touch with the show were jokingly told to “get lost”.

In an exciting collaboration between celebrated newspaper cartoonist Mac (aka Stanley McMurtry MBE), Sir Terry Wogan’s famous TOG’s have been brought to life in an series of witty cartoons which perfectly capture the satirical essence of Terry’s Old Geezers or Gals.

“I hope the words in this collection bring back as many happy memories for you as they do for me”

Terry Wogan art can be purchased at Heart Galleries, a Staffordshire art gallery.

Leaving his A-Levels to fend for themselves, he left school to study art at college and went on to a Fine Art degree at Middlesex University. Whilst at University Tom had a very strange experience on a train, which sparked the series of events that lead us here. The story is too long to be told now although, briefly, it led to the creation of a mythological 18th century French philosopher, the forging of a sword and the images that you see today.
His work can be described as an attempt to order that which he cannot, to create meaning where there is none and provide narrative to an otherwise story-less situation. Alternatively, for the moment, he likes the phrase ‘beautiful nonsensical meaning’.

The ideas for characters come from a mixture of random doodling and a fascination with really weird people. Both of which became obsessions whilst working part time in an Arts and Crafts shop to fund his painting habit. The background accompanying each character forms part of the epic story that lives inside Tom’s head. It is constantly evolving, and has the unfortunate ability to make him laugh out loud in public.

Tom works with a variety of techniques and processes to achieve the end result, be it a Giclee print, canvas or digital file. Usually starting with a pencil, he uses marker pens, biros, acrylic paint, aerosol cans, airbrushes, varnish, cardboard, digital camera, computer and fingers. Though not necessarily in that order.

Tom Lewis art can be purchased at Heart Galleries, a Staffordshire art gallery.