Live Painting

It was a busy Sunday 27.06.2021 at the Cairns Esplanade painting, there were record crowds and it was a perfect day to do some live painting.

I used Indian ink for the illustrations, there are many good qualities to Indian ink, it waters down to many different shades of black and grey, and it dries quickly on the heavy weight artist paper which is a must while working with ink or the paper will buckle.

In 6 hours I managed to do 12 portraits, that's less than 20 minutes each.

 When I work live it creates a lot of interest, people naturally would like to talk about what I'm doing, ask about art advise, if I hold classes, will I paint their portrait and lots of positive chit chat.

Plus onto top of that, I need to take photos of the person having their portrait illustrated, get their contact details, and make sure all media release forms are signed and any culture request are adhered to.

I take photos so people can enjoy the day while I do their portrait. It's good if I have a photo I can work from, I can always refer back to it and put little details in like the placement of freckles or correct the shape of teeth.

But it's usually the eyes that are the most important every thing else is secondary.

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After an eventful day, I go over each portrait at home, it was lovely to see each portrait only needed very minimal touch ups.

Out of 12 I only redid one, which happened to be my 1st one. This is usually the case as I find I need to warm up and get used to my surrounds.

Im very happy with my portraits I tried to get in a diverse set of people illustrated which happen to be from P.N.G., Korean, Chinese, Caucasian, Turkish, and Islander/ indigenous cultures.

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