Portraits At The Pub 30: Tangle

Tangle (detail), Portraits At The Pub, Thin Paint Sticks, Canson XL A3 sketchbook.

Paint sticks were the order of the day at last week’s portraits session – no pretense of watercolour or attempts at doing so – I just gave in to the god of paint sticks! There was one ink piece, a fountain pen and ink wash which I’m not happy with – even though I got the face best, the rest of it doesn’t work proportion-wise.

There are two A3 pieces using the Kwik Stix Thin Paint Sticks, and one piece with his shades – noticing a trend here of people wanting to be depicted with shades (it doesn’t look as cool as they think!) – very much how they want to be seen vs how they are. I much prefer the face on the other portrait pieces, like the second of the paint stick pieces, hence the detail. I was using sgraffito to depict the beard.

Tangle (detail), Portraits At The Pub, Fountain pen and wash, A4 Artway Flat White sketchbook.

Tangle (detail), Portraits At The Pub, Paint Sticks, Canson XL A3 sketchbook. — Tangle (detail), Portraits At The Pub, Fountain pen and wash, A4 Artway Flat White sketchbook.

He was wearing a multicoloured shirt (another thing that models think we want, many bright colours or intricate patterns – it actually makes the drawing a LOT harder) in greens, blues, reds and yellows with a tweed waistcoat – hard to get that level of greenish-grey with the sticks, hence the pink to try and tone it down. Also he had just come from Portugal, hence the tan!

Tangle, Portraits At The Pub, Thin Paint Sticks, A4 Artway Flat White Sketchbook.

Tangle (full size), Portraits At The Pub, Paint Sticks, Canson XL A3 sketchbook. — Tangle, Portraits At The Pub, Thin Paint Sticks, A4 Artway Flat White Sketchbook.

I think the piece with Tangle propping himself on a chair is the best, you get a feeling of reflection and thought and I like the hand shadow, the face in 3D (in both senses – like old anaglyph 3D red/green images which are an inspiration of mine, and three-dimensional modelling) nature of the face and the chair sgraffito. It’s one of those upholstered high chairs, with the diamond tufted pattern (just learnt it’s called that!)