Fifty four – Fill my weekend

The room was packed; there were about thirty or forty people standing: all the stools were taken. I looked around; it was hard to take everything in. Every wall and every empty space was adorned with paintings of white people. To the left of me was a chap who I had been chatting to: Eddie, who was ridiculously tall, worked in finance doing something called Risk Management.

‘You been to the National Portrait Gallery before?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, but it’s been ages’.

‘I’m a bit nervous about this. I can’t really draw. I got twelve percent in my last art exam’.

I remember when I had to do a painting for a high school exam. Twenty seven years later, I’m still upset. My painting was resoundingly terrible. One question that remains unanswered is: what was so good about it that I managed to get that twelve percent? After all, I got some marks for it. Was it the black and white zebra stockings that I studiously painted and then spectacularly smudged? Was it the cartoon eyes and bulbous nose, and a ridiculous ‘pink’ skin tone of our subject? I remain puzzled.

We were attending a ‘free instructed drawing session’. Before the event I had rushed into a stationery shop to buy some paper, an inappropriate pencil and an eraser. I wasn’t looking forward to event in the slightest. I would have rather gone to a talk about Jesus.

‘Thanks for coming everyone; it’s great to see so many people here tonight. Before we begin it’s important that we’re mindful of where we are standing or sitting, and to be aware of all the frames and statues. We’re all packed in here, so it’s important not to knock anything.’

Everyone looked around. I was inches away from a painting that was obviously a national treasure.

‘Tonight we’re going to focus on light and shade.’

Our instructor was in his late forties, wore a scruffy blue T-shirt and sported a salt and pepper beard that was on the cusp of being overgrown.

‘One really important thing that you need to be aware of is contrast. Let me show you what I mean.’ Our tutor held up three pieces of card: one was white, another was black, and a third was grey. ‘Here we have the contrasts between different tones. If we only have two, things look very different. If we have three, you can see that the contrast between the tones is emphasised, so in some ways, you don’t just see three tones, you see four’. He was losing me. I counted the tones, I could count only three.

‘What we’re going to be looking at is the contrast between the foreground and the background. If we all have a look at that Reynolds just over there, you can see what I mean; the background is as important as the foreground.  Can you see how the background is very very dark, perhaps darker than it would be in real life, and this emphasises that the light is falling on the figure. Also think about the direction where the light is coming from.’ Other than the speaker, the room was silent.

‘Now, if we have a look at the painting over there…’ he gestured towards where I was standing. I was blocking the view of a painting. I tried to move out of the way, but it was futile. I decided to crouch down.

‘Here you have a really good example. Can you see how the dark shaded background really emphasises the foreground? In some respects, the hair is darker than the background too, which also adds emphasis; it’s the difference between the tones that creates contrast between the different aspects, just like the card. There’s also the cat. Do you see the cat? That cat is like a shape. When you’re looking at things, don’t see things as what they are, just view them as abstract shapes – and that’s what each of these paintings are’. I looked at the cat. I could see that the cat was, indeed, a shape, and it wasn’t actually very detailed; that the shape of the cat had somehow communicated ‘essence of cat-ness’ to my brain’. He turned around.

‘And over here, you’ve got another really good example. Can you see, again, where there is contrast, light and shade? And the darkness over there, which is really dark, but that bit which isn’t as dark which then emphasises the lightness of the shade’.

Minutes later, we joined a queue to collect some sheets of paper, a piece of stiff card (for a drawing board), some sensible pencils and a piece of graphite. I was still amazed that I hadn’t paid anything to do this. When we had gathered our supplies, we wandered about the gallery to choose a painting to copy. Every painting I saw appeared to be profoundly difficult. There were men wearing wigs and women with huge dresses. After two circuits of the gallery and an increasing level of bewilderment, I sat down at a place that didn’t have too many people.

I found myself opposite a portrait of William Dampier, painted by Thomas Murray.  Dampier circumnavigated the globe three times. He had striking features: a long nose, sad tired eyes, and shoulder length hair that rested on his lapels.

I remembered a piece of advice an art teacher had once told me (in the days before I was awarded twelve percent). When I was called up to have my work assessed he said, ‘your drawings are really small and perhaps this is because you’re quiet? Use all the paper; when it comes to drawing don’t be afraid to make some noise’.

Before me was the tyranny of the empty page. I started with a book (since that had some easy straight lines), added a sleeve, then moved to the other sleeve, lightly sketched out a shape of a head, and could see where his shoulders were emerging.

I remembered the words of our instructor: look for the darkness and the shadow. I picked up the graphite and started to copy the blackness that I saw: I could see glimpses about how Murray was creating light. I teased the graphite over the area of my page that was to be Dampier’s jacket, and looked at his waist coat, which was a red colour.  I had no idea about how to practically translate the world of colour to a world of monochrome. What depth of grey would that red have to be? I was starting to get frustrated.

‘How you getting along?’ I looked up. It was Eddie.

‘Hey! That’s good, man! I thought you said that you couldn’t draw! You ought to see mine… Mine is terrible. Look.’ Eddie unrolled his sketch; all I saw was a couple of incomprehensible lines that he quickly flashed before me. He was right; it was terrible.

‘I’m really embarrassed. It’s amazing what other people are doing. You seen them? Absolutely amazing!’

Eddie encouraged me to continue. I hit the point where I had to draw Dampier’s face, as otherwise I would spend the evening drawing a faceless ghost. The shape was wrong; I used the graphite on his hair a bit more. I used my pencil and put his eyes in the wrong place, but then I changed my approach. I asked myself the questions ‘where are the shadows’ and ‘where is the darkness’. I suddenly ‘got’ how to draw his nose to get roughly the right shape. I figured out that I shouldn’t think of his lips as lips, but a dark line, from which emanates other shadows and shading. Within a painting which is made up of contrasts, I could see other contrasts.

‘How are we doing?’ I looked up. It was our teacher. I had mixed feelings: I wanted him to look, but I just wanted to hide it away; I didn’t want him to say ‘I wouldn’t give that more than twelve percent’.

‘Ah, you’re doing him, okay, good. I can see your shade, and there’s the contrast. That’s beautiful. Really well observed. Good!’ I uttered a bashful ‘thanks’ and then went back to messing around with my pencil.

Did I hear this correctly? Did an art teacher from the National Portrait Gallery actually say that he thought my drawing was ‘really well observed?’ Was I dreaming? Had I really improved by doing absolutely bugger all for over twenty years? Did he really not think that the eyes were in the wrong place and my rendition of Dampier’s huge nose was patently ridiculous? I acquired a feeling that can only be described as ‘astonished proudness’.

Half an hour later, I got bored with Dampier. I couldn’t see how I could improve my sketch any further. I looked at another nearby painting. It was of a bearded old man who appeared to be wrapped in a set of red velvet curtains. I got my pad out and started again, but it was difficult going; I was on the floor, and the painting was really high on the wall. I needed a chair. With fifteen minutes to go, I decided to give up and have a walk around the gallery. Eddie was right: some of the drawings made by other people were awesome.

I handed in my pencil, graphite stick and drawing board, and then went to wash my hands; they were a shiny grey colour. I found Eddie sitting by the entrance. We watched the other students packing up their stuff.

‘You coming to the pub?’ Eddie asked.

Ten minutes later, I was at The Chandos, a pub across the road from The National Portrait Gallery, with a couple of other ‘artists’.

‘Are, you, erm, a part of the group?’ I asked a young looking chap who was standing close to the bar.

‘Yes, I’m the organiser.’

Our organiser was called Simon. I asked Simon about his group.

‘I started it ten months ago. I wanted to go along to some events myself, but I didn’t have anyone to go with, so I created a group, and other people came along. There are now ten thousand people in the group’.

‘You have ten thousand people in your group?’ I was more accustomed to going to groups that had a couple of hundred people. The Laughter Yoga group had no more than two hundred. This might explain why there were so many people had come along to the event, and why Simon had looked so worried at the start.

‘Yes, it’s been the fastest growing group in London for a couple of months now’.

It turned out that Simon had quit his job in IT to focus only on running events. He organised a New Year’s Eve party for over two hundred people. I later looked at his group and he had announced over thirty events: rock climbing, boat trips, theatre trips, more drawing events, and the occasional comedy night. He ran something every couple of days. This was now Simon’s full time job and he went to every single event. I was equally surprised and impressed. I liked Simon. He came across as professional, friendly and confident. He also seemed to be surrounded by an enthusiastic entourage.

I was also surprised at my drawing of Dampier and the fat man who was dressed in curtains. The words ‘well observed’ resonated in my mind all the way home.

When I got home, I took another look at my sketch. It was a pretty poor sketch, but had my art teacher seen it today I’m sure she would have given me more than twelve percent. What’s more, I had gained a slight insight into why some people might enjoy sketching.