Passion of Wolves players captured on canvas
‘There has been a real joy in how people have responded to these paintings.’
Those are the words of a Wolves fan whose artist wife has painted a series of 12 stunning artworks which will be auctioned off for charity.
Louise Cobbold has painted the dozen watercolour works in aid of Cure Leukaemia and they will go up for auction later this month.
The idea for ‘The Great Big Art Auction’ was sparked earlier this year when Louise illustrated a watercolour of her husband Chris’s favourite player Ruben Neves.
When Chris posted the image online it caused a massive buzz on social media, with Wolves fans lining up to praise its likeness to the Portuguese midfield lynchpin.
Louise, who left her job as an art teacher to start work an artist back in 2015, said: “I gave the initial painting of Ruben Neves as a gift to Chris and then we put it on social media to see people’s reaction to it.
“It got a really good response and was pretty amazing.
“There were about 2,000 reactions, loads of comments – above and beyond what we thought we would get.”
Chris added: “It has taken us both by surprise. We never imagined in a million years that posting something like that online would get that kind of response.”
The strength of the initial reaction led Louise and Chris to question if more could be done with the Wolves watercolours.
And they decided to come up with the idea for a series of works which could be auctioned off for a good cause.
After Wolves keeper Carl Ikeme was diagnosed with acute leukaemia last summer, only one charity seemed suitable to support – Cure Leukaemia.
Two months later Louise has completed the collection of 12 stunning likenesses.
There are individual portraits of Ivan Cavaleiro, Barry Douglas, Helder Costa, Leo Bonatini, Matt Doherty, Willy Boly, Diogo Jota – and two of Neves.
Louise has also painted Wolves boss Nuno, a team celebration and the players in a huddle in front of the South Bank.
She said: “After we got such an amazing reaction I started to think about what I should do and where I could take it.
“We were just talking together and thought it would be nice to do something for a charity which is close to Wolves.
“Then we had the idea for me to paint a whole bunch of paintings and auction them off for charity.”
Louise and Chris contacted Wolves club photographer Sam Bagnall and discussed with him which of his pictures from the season Louise could turn into watercolours.
Among those which have been turned into paintings are Barry Douglas’ iconic knee-slide at Bristol City and the team huddle in front of fans holding up cards spelling out ‘No1 Carl’.
Louise, 38, said: “Sam has got a big range of really good photos and we had to choose which ones to use, and which ones I thought would make good paintings.
“I was quite keen to capture the passion and expressions in the paintings and try to put that across.”
Chris, who grew up in Suffolk, was introduced to Wolves by his father Keith. Along with his brother Andy, Chris was a mascot when Wolves played at Portman Road in 1983 and has not looked back since.
His 12-year-old son Joshua followed in his father’s footsteps in the reverse fixture two years ago.
Chris, 41, whose boyhood hero was Steve Bull, said: “This has brought our biggest passions together – my support of Wolves and Louise’s love of art.
“The reaction has been amazing. There has been a real joy in how people have responded when they see the paintings.”
Using watercolours can be quite a ‘high-risk’ method, according to Louise – which meant some of her work had to be thrown away and some of the paintings took longer than others.
The former art teacher said: “Some of the paintings took less time and some I had to do twice, including Jota.The colour I used for that painting was slightly different to all the other shirts, so I wanted to do it again.”
The auction is due to launch on Cure Leukaemia’s eBay page on April 20, with all proceeds going to the charity.
Limited edition prints will also be made available later this month, with 10 per cent of profits on them given to Cure Leukaemia.
More details about the auction will be revealed in the run-up to it launching.
Chris said he and Louise had been inspired to support the charity by the work of other Wolves fundraising champions.
