Only time for one more portrait today and it's Lance Corporal Jack Jones, played by…
Jack Harper
Number three in the On The Buses Collection is Jack Harper, played by the late Bob Grant. This one has taken a while as my black marker and the darkest of my five grey markers both ran out without me having a spare to hand. These are two of my most important colours with my chiaroscuro style, a style that’s especially appropriate to these dark bus uniforms.
I used the black marker to make a couple of late adjustments. First, I made Jack’s face a bit narrower by covering up some of it in black. Second, I put his right shoulder even higher than in my source photo to combine together the black shapes of the jacket and cap and to make Jack look a bit shiftier.
And, while I remember, a quick word about On The Buses. When you bring up On The Buses in conversation, the first thing people talk about is the outdated sexism. These people obviously haven’t watched the program in years. When I get to watch On The Buses, the thing that jumps out of it is the bulling. The inspector bullies the bus crews, the bus crews bully the inspector and Jack, Stan and Arthur all bully Olive for being overweight and ugly. And bullying isn’t bullying if the bully doesn’t laugh in the face of the victim when something horrible happens to them. Honestly, there’s far more bullying than sexism in On The Buses.
Anyway, off onto number four now.
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