Eli Wallach

Today on Portrait Artist Of The Week It was Clare Balding.  I didn’t rate my chances of doing Clare justice so I’ve instead headed back to The Magnificent Seven to draw Eli Wallach who played Calvera, the leader of a gang of Mexican bandits.

The problem with a set of seven portraits is that (unless three or four of them are landscape aligned) it’s hard to find an off the shelf framing solution.  That was another good reason for drawing Eli – a set of eight will be easier to frame.

As for the picture, there’s no likeness but there’s some interesting personality on there.  There’s evil and vulnerability, which Eli has in spades, but it’s just not Eli’s evil and vulnerability.  Still, he’ll make a grand addition to the set.  I’ll come back to Eli another day when I get around to drawing a The Good, The Bad And The Ugly collection.

And I’ve just realised that the  great thing about this film is the clothes.  It’s the clothes that make some of these drawings so recognisable even in the absence of  likeness.

It’s too late to add Eli to the survey – he’ll have to go in next time.