New link-up is picture perfect for Super Kev
CARDIFF City legend Kevin McNaughton has opened up on his love of art.
The Bluebirds icon, who played 255 league games during a nine-year stint at the club, also revealed that a painting of the iconic image of fans holding him aloft after the 2013 promotion rekindled his passion.
That painting was done by Darren Baker and a conversation with the Royal painter stoked McNaughton’s creative fires.
“The link-up with Darren was weird. It was around the time of my testimonial at Cardiff. He’d been on to my agent about trying to paint Cristiano Ronaldo,” he told the Daily Record.
“But my agent mentioned to Darren that I was into art and asked if he’d have a chat with me.
“He said he could do something for me so he did a painting from the picture of me celebrating promotion with City fans.
“It was a strange one. He has painted the Queen and Sir Alex Ferguson before – then me!”
Like most of us, the lockdown being imposed due to the coronavirus has provided McNaughton with plenty of spare time and he’s picked up the paint brush.
McNaughton’s work can be found on his website and includes paintings of the late Peter Whittingham, who tragically passed away last month.
There are also portraits of celebrities including Liam Gallagher, Floyd Mayweather, Conor McGregor anda painting of the infamous Robin Friday image.
But it was a portrait of actor Al Pacino that really sparked things after a friend offered to buy it.
“It started off at school but I left art when I started playing and never went back.
“Then towards the end of my career I broke my leg and had to keep myself busy so I got into the art stuff again.
“People were asking if I’d do pictures for them so I started up my own wee website. I took some orders and it went all right.
“At first, I was just sketching with a pen. From there, it went to painting and I’ve just got better.
“One of my mates saw one of my paintings at home and said: ‘I’ll buy that off you.’
“In the end, I just gave him it. It was an Al Pacino portrait, in black and grey.
“He’d seen it lying about the house. It wasn’t even on the wall, it was in a corner of the room.
“After that, I thought I’d give it a go and I have sold quite a few through the website. It is a nice feeling.
“Around Christmas, I had loads of orders, mainly from Cardiff supporters.
“They were asking me to paint pictures of players and it became pretty popular.”