I did another 30 minute portrait drawing this morning with a Baby Boomer with the most fantastic cheekbones. His face is so sculpted that I became absorbed in the abstraction of the planes and angles. Awesome. I drew him at The SPace, Swansea’s newest artspace at 217 High Street, Swansea, open Wednesday to Saturday, 11.30 to 5.00 until mid February.
At last, one of my Baby Boomer ‘victims’ who drew me right back! A lot of the people sitting for this series of 30 minute portraits are fellow artists and this one scribbled me while I scribbled him. Tit for tat.
Today’s Baby Boomer, a striking woman with huge eyes and some fabulous patterns. One of my series of 30 minute portrait sketches of my generation. I’m aiming to do a hundred – I’m about a quarter of the way through.
Another day, another Baby Boomer sketch, done in under 30 minutes, recording my generation. I used graphite sticks into an A5 spiralbound sketchbook. It’s nice to have something like a scarf to draw around the neck.
And another of my Baby Boomer portrait sketches, all done in under 30 minutes into an A5 spiral bound sketchbook, this one with graphite sticks. Spectacles are so difficult to do – if you don’t get them right, it throws all the other proportions out.
Continuing with my series of 30 minute sketches of baby boomers – my generation……..
I’m going to post a series of my Baby Boomer drawings over the next few days. I’ve been doing quite a few lately. This model wanted to read during our 30 minutes together and it’s interesting for me because she’s the only person so far that hasn’t had their eyes wide open.
I’ve been experimenting today. I was given some large pieces of robust tissue paper by a fellow artist and invited to do something with them and then give them back to her for her installation. I decided to cover them with rubbings made from a very large woodcut I have been working on. It isn’t finished yet so I don’t have any prints but the rubbings picked up the developed parts nicely.
I tried out a few different drawing materials to start with. First, carbon, compressed charcoal and Bideford Black (looked good but too smudgy). Secondly, Chinese charcoal (too hard, ripped the paper). And finally, Graphite block (perfect, didn’t rip, didn’t smudge, nice metallic sheen). Bit like Goldilocks and the porage.
There are differing opinions on how to spell porage, which is the spelling I always use but many use porridge and, rarely, parritch. I love the stuff, made nice and thin (Husb contemptuously calls it gruel – he likes it thick enough to stand your spoon in) and I put a knob of butter in mine, I’m not fond of sugar. When I was in Pakistan I had porage made from cracked wheat rather than oats, nice but very different.
I’m on a roll with the Baby Boomer sketches. I’m trying to do as many as possible at The SPace before our lease runs out in mid-February. If there are any Baby Boomers in the Swansea area who fancy posing for a 30 minute sketch and being part of this project, please get in touch. I can’t guarantee that it will look exactly like you – if I was doing a formal portrait I’d do loads of drawings over several sittings. Sometimes the sketches look very much like the sitter, sometimes not and sometimes just a bit. But the important thing for me is meeting and talking to other Baby Boomers and capturing those fleeting moments in a quick drawing.
Baby Boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964. I’m aiming to draw a hundred Baby Boomers over the next few months. I’m up to almost 30. Eventually the drawings will be converted to photographic silkscreens and put into a print installation.
scribblah 