Portrait artist paints 70 people in one village

Jeannine Jourdan said she thought it "might be fun" to paint everyone in the village

A portrait artist has made "a unique contribution" to her village archives by painting nearly a third of the community.

Jeannine Jourdan lives in Belstone, on the edge of Dartmoor, which has a population of about 250.

Mrs Jourdan set about the task at the start of the pandemic, painting from photographs.

Originally she planned to capture every villager but in the end she settled on 70 portraits.

The Californian artist has lived in Belstone, near Okehampton in Devon, for about eight years.

Mrs Jourdan said she came up with the idea when the pandemic struck and lockdown hit the UK.

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"I thought it might be fun to paint everyone in the village," she said.

In her 15 years of painting portraits Mrs Jourdan said she has had one rule which is never to paint from photos but she had to make a concession in order to keep working during the pandemic.

"I wanted to be able to keep painting portraits so I decided to break my rule and paint from photographs," she said.

Mrs Jourdan took photos of the villagers from a distance, wearing a face mask, and then she worked from the images.

Chris Walpole was the first person to be captured on canvas

The first person captured on canvas was local historian Chris Walpole who administers the Belstone community archive which goes back to Norman times.

"It's got thousands of photographs of landscapes and events all through the last century and into this but very rarely do you get photos of actual people, let alone painted portraits," he said.

Mr Walpole said he would take photographs of all 70 portraits to add to the local records "which will become such a unique part of the future archive".

Margaret Martin has been a resident of the village for nearly 50 years

Another of the portrait subjects is 88-year-old Margaret Martin who has lived in Belstone for 49 years.

"I think the project is amazing," she said.

Mrs Martin said it was remarkable that the artist had got so many people in the village to agree to be painted.

Villager Alison Hastie said she was delighted with her portrait.

"How often do you get this experience in the digital age that we live in?

"It is a tremendous community record of this era but done with such ancient skill," she said.

The 70 portraits are due to go on show in Belstone village hall and the local Methodist chapel.

Mrs Jourdan said the paintings would go on sale with a suggested donation, based on what she would normally charge for a painting, but she added that "people can pay what they like and that will be confidential".

The proceeds of the sale will go towards village projects, including the upkeep of the ancient Norman church.

The Belstone Folk Exhibition was due to take place from Saturday 4 May to Monday 6 May.