When I painted Jack Ansett for Taskmaster NZ
- Mark Whippy
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 19 hours ago
By now most people have probably already seen the painting I did of Jack Ansett for 2025's season of Taskmaster NZ. I was asked with about a weeks notice if I could do a big painting of NZ comedian Jack Ansett for a challenge on the show. The challenge was for the contestants to show their feline side, but it can't be a cat.
After watching his cat, Jack asked if he could pose for one of my art classes at Studio One Toi Tu and make it look like he was licking his own genitalia.
It was quite short notice especially for a big painting, but I have a lot of experience in drawing naked people quickly with years of life drawing, so I figured I could do it.
He had told me he would just be posing in his underwear and they would make it look like he was naked on TV. So I thought it would be better for him to pose for the portrait class rather than the life drawing class, since the life drawing class use nude models.
All the students were very excited to be part of it, but none of them had actually painted before. But I think they did a good job. Some of them were also big fans of the show.
There may have been some confusion because I believe he was going to end up getting naked for the class since he had seen that I use nude models for the life drawing class, but I hadn't told the students that would be happening so I said to just stay in his boxers.
In order to make it look like he had his leg up like a cat, we had to use an extra stool and get him to sit his leg on that. I don't know how he managed to keep his leg up like that or if he was in pain or not. I needed photo reference so had to take photos of him doing this with his tongue out while looking into the camera.
I did the painting later in my studio, I treated it like it was just a big life drawing and used the same processes I would use for a life drawing just with oil paint.
Jack wasn't really expecting me to do anything amazing, but in the end were blown away by how good it actually looked. I was really happy with how it turned out myself and looking back I'm surprised I had the energy to put that off on such short notice, but very glad I did.
So now you know the story of this painting.
Jack invited me to his show last year as well, go check him out.
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