Superfast painter sets ablaze the canvas to create live portraits

Brad Blaze, perhaps one of the fastest painter in the world and hottest entertainer on stage, has set ablaze the passion of a stunned audience of nearly 1,000 people with his under four minutes messy painting show using fire and blaze.

He virtually set ablaze the canvas and from the hot flames emerged lively portraits of celebrities, politicians, sports stars or anyone who matters.

An entertainer and painter from Australia, Brad Blaze was one of the several multitalented speakers at the Open Minds Forum in Muscat in which the “Who is Who” of Omani and expatriate community took part.

He could virtually take the multinational audience spellbound by setting ablaze the canvas to create a life like image of none other than Sultan bin Qaboos bin Said, the ruler of Oman. The audience were in awe, the Australian painter and entertainer completed the portrait within four minutes after keeping them guessing as to who was to emerge from his messy exercise.

He plays with fire and chemicals to do both creation and destruction by keeping the audience engaged and entertained to create new portraits.

This is not the first time that Brad Blaze has set ablaze the audience and canvas simultaneously by drawing such portraits under four minutes and the techniques that he uses as a painter and entertainer kept his thousand strong audience, keenly watching each movement of his magic brush.

Brad Blazes’ live entertainment and painting show in the background of a rock music, was a major attraction of the Open Minds Forum, organized by the Muscat based Black and White Magazine in association with MPHH. The superfast painter to music is regularly doing such shows to raise fund for charity as well. There was a huge applause from the largely Omani audience, when he spins the canvas before completing the portrait of Sultan Qaboos within four minutes of painting to rock music.

It was his last show in Muscat before Brad enthralled audiences from across Australia, Asia, United Arab Emirates and The United States.

“At such events he has painted two prime ministers and some of the world’s leading sportsmen ‘live’ at events including Tiger Woods (PGA Masters), Robert Allenby (golf), Sir Ian Botham (cricket), Shane Warne (cricket), James Hird (AFL), Cameron Smith (NRL), Nico Rosberg (F1 Driver) and celebrities Eric Bana (Movie Star: Black Hawk Down, Hulk) and many more.

He has been painting since a child, he said in the middle of making strokes and lines in tune with the rhythm of background music on the canvas. As a child he learned how to paint various characters that he found in comic books. Most of the time, he was trying to copy and portray the images in comic books, instead of reading the text.

A finance and insurance professional, Brad was trying to climb up the corporate ladder, and during the busy train journeys in Australia to his work place and back home, he used to practice caricaturing fellow commuters, event without their knowledge. He has perfected the art of speed painting out of his passion for art. “They say it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill.  I’ve spent more than 10,000 including the time I traveled by train” he said. Many artists cannot make big money as art has been commercialized and some paintings are sold for $20 million due to marketing skills, he added.

“I have spent about 10,000 hours practicing caricaturing and painting during my train journeys. By the year 2000, he became an established caricaturist entertaining people attending parties by drawing their pictures. He makes a living with his superfast painting shows and has raised money for charity as well. It is not yet known, who all have bid for the portrait of Sultan Qaboos that Brad painted on the stage of Open Minds Forum, Muscat. At the end of his show, the paintings are auctioned.

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