Roy With A Beard

It’s Tuesday and Sky Portrait Artist Of The Year is on later, so I was in the mood for a bit of portraiture.  Obviously using markers.  I’m nowhere near being able to paint portraits and, while I can have a good stab at pencil portraits, I fancied giving the markers a go.  They’re less messy than pencil and I feel I have more freedom to be fast and loose.

So off to Facebook for a suitable model and I found Roy.  One of the things I discovered on last week’s Sky PAOTY was that some people are just easier to draw than others.  The three artists that had Micky Flanagan in front of him couldn’t believe their luck.  So I was looking for someone that would make a great model.  And I found Roy, a former work colleague and the bassist with Essex pub rockers The Gentlemen Of Io.  They’re a sort of mediaeval Grateful Dead.

The picture that came out at the end is definitely Roy.  The worst thing about him was the mouth.  The mouth was so un-Roy that I took the drastic measure of adding a beard.  I think he suits a beard (and, after all he does like his beer and his Southern Rock) and should grow one in real life.  The best bit about it was how I bravely threw in some blues and violets with the flesh colours to “bring the whole thing together” after using the same colours in his shirt.

This one’s not for sale but if you’re reading this, Roy, you can have it for free if you want it.