Portraits at The Pub 41: Charlie

Charlie (detail), Portraits At the Pub 41, Fountain pen, A4 Fabriano Mixed Media Sketchbook

The hiatus from portrait drawing was only supposed to be a couple of months, not half a year! Events such as my health, money woes and other stuff kept me away. But last week I went back, and it was our old friend Charlie posing for us – this must be the fourth time I’ve drawn him, if not more. And when we came back from the lockdown, Charlie was the first one we drew as well, so spook!

So a familiar face and a few other familiar faces too – sadly a lot of the usual gang were away (Martin, Naomi, John) but Steve and Toni was there, as well as Liz who hosts it at The Lamb. Great to see them after all this time!

Charlie, Portraits At the Pub 41, Fountain pen and wash, Daler Rowney Graduate Mixed Media pad, A4

Charlie (detail), Portraits At the Pub 41, Fountain pen and wash, Daler Rowney Graduate Mixed Media pad, A4 — Charlie, Portraits At the Pub 41, Fountain pen and wash, Daler Rowney Graduate Mixed Media pad, A4

As regards the session, above is my first portrait in 6 months, and I think it’s pretty good even though I felt very rusty! I guess the difference is I didn’t stop drawing, I just stopped drawing people. Proud of the eyes in this one, in fact in all of them I seemed to focus more on the eyes this time.

Charlie, Portraits At the Pub 41, Lyra water-soluble Graphite crayon and wash, A4 Fabriano Mixed Media Sketchbook

I then did a traditional Lyra crayon piece, which came out very moody, if not totally representative. I liked the curves of the trainer and the pose, but the hand flummoxed me somewhat with the scale, I had to do a lot of adjusting, thankfully you can just wash away the Lyra.

I did a third piece which made Charlie look like an angry Samurai (partly cos of the shoulder brace, and partly cos I drew it in a very Van Gogh/Hokusai style). That wasn’t very good.