Portraitist. Such a lofty connotation! A portraitist is an artist who utilizes a variety of numbered pencils and paint brushes to ensure exact likenesses of their customers. The time spent producing such portraits takes anywhere from ninety minutes to a couple of weeks. A portraitist is a studio artist. As for me, I prefer pencils over paints and I’ve not the patience to be a portraitist.
Caricaturist. Plotting to the far left on that same continuum as the portraitist is the caricaturist. Utilizing mainly magic markers and sharpies, caricaturists exaggerate their customers’ worst facial features to absurdity yet still within recognizable proportions. The time spent producing such creations takes only a few minutes. As for me, I prefer pencils over markers and I must confess that drawing a face to mock that of the customer’s seems most condescending. For this reason I could never be a caricaturist.
Though I strive for an exact likeness, I’m not a portraitist. And though I commit to quickly draw someone in minutes, I’m not a caricaturist. Being somewhere betwixt a portraitist and a caricaturist, I’ve come to conclude I am a DOPPELGANGER DAB HAND!
Some factoids about my portrait busking:
An instinctive reaction guides my pencil and just so you know … MY PENCIL NEVER LIES!
My portrait busking is a mercenary mission. Time is money. Drawing four people an hour is much more lucrative than taking an hour to draw one person! Factoid: The longer I take to draw someone the more a photographic likeness is expected. Details are important but rendering detail is not to record every detail like a camera!
I always start with a light big round sketch so the head always fits. In my earlier experiences I’ve been known to have the odd headful of hair chopped because I’d run out of vertical space at the top of my sketch.
I draw what I see, not what I think I see. I see not pretty; I see not ugly. I see not chubby; I see not skully. I see just faces with arresting features. If I see eyes that stand out, I spotlight them. If I see a schnoz I draw a schnoz. If I see a satchmo I draw a satchmo.
Chins are important, yet I rarely define them. Usually I smudge in some subtle neck lines suggesting where the chin ends. And speaking of smudges, I smudge all the shadows with my trigger finger, especially ‘round the cheeks, on the nose, and that forehead space above the eyebrows and beneath the hairline.
Even though I sketch only the busts of my consumers, more specifically, the head and neck and part of the shoulders, I do seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time in detailing the garb of these graphite ghosts. I’m not sure why but doing so has become a signature chunk of my trade.
Frames. If I had a cache of frames stored ‘neath or near my drawing station I would certainly make quite a bit more money. For example, whenever I draw for my friends, it is always for free, and always includes a frame. Weekly, I make a trip to the nearest dollar store and not surprisingly, always find a couple of 8” x 10” with mat, 11” x 14” without mat. I never buy the common black or solid dark brown; I buy only the silver and woodgrains. Such a frame sells for $4.00. If I were to include a frame with each portrait, I’d price the sketch at $15.00, charge $10.00 for the frame (over a one hundred percent markup), for a total of $25.00 per portait.
However, as a busker I like to travel light and I like to travel with speed. Carting around a cache of picture frames would be too clunky to tow and difficult, too, to store in a sidewalk space. (For the obvious practical purposes, I need to keep my buskspots as compact as possible.)
Yes. I am a DOPPELGANGER DAB HAND!
With a ten-minute timeline people actually pay me to draw their doppelganger selves! I sketch these graphite ghosts for my consumers to hang upon their walls and to haunt them ‘til the rest of their days!
Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week are some of the staff, GINO, AVERY, MEGAN, and AMY, along with their graphite ghosts all pictured above, from the ITALIAN STAR DELI, home of the BEST SANDWICHES (and one of my favourite buskspots) in REGINA SK.
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