Dad

It was my Dad’s 70th birthday on Saturday and so to commemorate the occasion I drew a portrait of him.

I was a little worried that he might not like it as it portrayed him without gloss and fairly straight-forwardly as the spry old man he is (though of course, if as they say, 60 is the new 40, he is in fact not such an ‘old man’ after all).  But he seemed to like the picture, which was a huge relief.

In terms of technique, I drew the portrait from a photo in pencil onto cartridge paper, then built up the colour tone using ordinary fine-line pens.

I chose to use pen rather than paint as I wanted to get a measure of control (this is probably due to the fact that having spent a lifetime doodling in pen I am conversely fairly hopeless with brush and paint).  I also felt that my natural affinity with the pen would add an element of expressiveness or freedom, the same kind evident in most of my doodles but quite often lacking from my more ‘professional’ or polished work.  Plus I’d already tried this technique with a self-portrait (see my Gravatar thingy, top right corner) which seemed to work OK.

In the end, I think my Dad’s portrait works quite well.  Maybe the technique could now be my thing?  We shall see.

In the meantime, happy birthday Dad.