Portraits at the Pub 13: Charlie (Post Apocalypse edition)

Charlie, Portraits At The Pub (30 mins) - detail, Quill and Ink wash, 28x38cm, Fabriano Artistico paper

Something like 18 months late, the first Portraits At The Pub at the Lamb happened on Tuesday – and it was a great if rather strange event, catching up with the old crowd mostly meeting for the first time since the pandemic started. Also not helping is I was wearing a mask for some of it. Another first is I caught a nasty cold over a week ago; and got a proper PCR COVID test and confirmed I was negative. But when I was coughing I was taking no chances of spreading my cold bug!

Posing for us was Charlie, who talking to him was born in Oxford but grew up in Oregon, hence the accent and used to work at the Lamb. Apparently he’d posed before but that must have been a week I missed. I was so creaky, and out of practice – unlike others I stopped doing portrait and life drawing online because I didn’t find the two-dimensional nature worked for me. I started doing ‘cartoons’ and very two dimensional drawings – still present in part here, so it’s a habit I need to get out of.

So it was a mix of new and old – where my style/process was when I downed tools – and where I am now.

And there are a few I look at now that I can see technical issues with; being so out of practice, but I like the feel of this set so posted them whole.

Charlie, Portraits At The Pub (10 mins), Platinum Preppy fountain pen, A4 sketchbook

Charlie, Portraits At The Pub (10 mins) - detail, Platinum Preppy fountain pen, A4 sketchbook — Charlie, Portraits At The Pub (10 mins), Platinum Preppy fountain pen, A4 sketchbook

So we have fountain pen drawings – fountain pens were mostly lockdown thing for me so I’ve rarely used them in anger in one of these sessions – and a new technique using wet on wet coloured pencils. I’ve not posted these here before but before the Jurassic Jaunt I bought some cheap Daler Simply packs of watercolour pencils – a steal at £3 from Poundland – and started abusing them.

Charlie, Portraits At The Pub (10 mins), Watercolour Pencil and spray, A4 sketchbook

I’ve talked about how drawing in pencil became an issue for me – so part of that reclaiming is seeing how I can use those tools that don’t make me feel unhappy with my drawing, and also work less representational and more expressively. Hence this colourful sketch, using my mini spray bottle on the page and working into that. Like the Woody pencil below, I do prefer the deep solid colour you get, it’s more like painting to the light colours you get normally.

At the time I was ??? about this sketch but now one of my favourites from the session,

Interestingly I have drawings from my teens where I have done similar but not with water, the frenetic style is similar. How things change and yet stay the same. I might post those when my computer is fixed (this is posted on a super old Vaio, it’s all really held with pieces of string – it’s amazing I managed to scan these and blog this on a 13 year old machine).

Charlie, Portraits At The Pub (2 mins), Woody Pencil and waterbrush pen, A3 sketchbook

Charlie, Portraits At The Pub (8 mins), Woodless charcoal, A3 sketchbook.

Charlie, Portraits At The Pub (10 mins), Woody Pencil and wash, A4 sketchbook. — Charlie, Portraits At The Pub (8 mins), Woodless charcoal, A3 sketchbook.

We also have the familiar – breaking out my old A3 sketchpad, we have woodless charcoal drawings alongside the pencil ‘paintings’ and the return of the quill! Someone requested a hat, which was furnished by Liz, a bowler with feathers and leaves so of course I had to draw a feather with a feather. It was intended as a watercolour but became an ink wash painting, and I love the frontier/New Orleans nature of this.

Also I think the first time I used the thinner Fabriano Artistico at one of these, and although I think it’s a slight waste for ink work, it works well.