Chance to paint Doddy may be my big break; SPIRIT OF LIVERPOOL 100 GREATEST MERSEYSIDERS.

Byline: By JOE RILEY Arts Editor

AMATEUR artist John Kneen is hoping that doing Ken Dodd's portrait will pave the way to a late professional painting career.

John, 51, has won the opportunity to immortalise the legendary comic in a gallery of greatest Merseysiders.

The prize is part of the ECHO'S Spirit of Liverpool campaign, run in association with Alliance and Leicester Commercial Bank, to provide portraits of the leading Merseysiders of all time.

Father of three John, from Anfield, entered a competition for an ECHO reader to paint Doddy who has already topped the poll in the Spirit of Liverpool's entertainment category

John said: "Until now, painting has been a hobby; perhaps winning this prize will help me take it up full-time.

"This is the first painting competition I have gone in for.

"I only took up painting 10 years ago and then gained a late degree in fine arts from Liverpool John Moores University in 2004."

John, who works for Sainsbury's as a shop assistant and also as an educational support worker for those with learning difficulties, paints in his spare time, using an old boiler house in the back yard of the family home as a makeshift studio.

He won the ECHO reader competition after submitting previous portraits he had done of John Lennon and Humphrey Bogart.

But painting Doddy will be special.

"He has such a characterful face, just what you want as an artist."

The finished work, in acrylics, will be unveiled at a special gala at World Museum Liverpool on May 24.

Tracey Hunt of Alliance and Leicester Commercial Bank, who was one of the judges, said: "John's work has a very original style."

Another judge, Lucy Byrne, director of competition co-ordinators, city based artists' agency Dot-art, said: "John's use of colour brings out the character of his subjects very well."

In total, 10 Spirit of Liverpool finalists, already chosen by an ECHO poll, will be turned into works of art.

The other winners are The Beatles; Dixie Dean; William Gladstone; Meccano inventor Frank Hornby; Professor Janet Hemingway, director of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine; Father Francis O'Leary founder of Jospice International; the author and broadcaster Brian Jacques; Liverpool civic guide Steve Binns and human rights campaigner James Mawdesley

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CAPTION(S):

ON RIGHT LINE: John Kneen works in his tiny Anfield studio while wife Lesley hangs out the washing. He hopes a portrait of Ken Dodd could be his big break Picture: EDDIE BARFORD/eb020407aartist