(Clearly, the much more important aspect of this sketch is that my actual son is making bread, rather than me. This is a wonderful and most welcome development in the life of my continuing drudgery as a food preparer and provider.)
Paddy had gone to his usual place but neither his regular barber Ali nor his colleague were there. They are both Syrian. A different, non-Arabic guy cut Paddy’s hair and he did all kinds of things I don’t like – shaved the hair too close and too high (which is fine, but – allow me to be a proud mama here for a sec – not when the lad has beautiful thick chestnut hair!) and also I cannot bear a thin little fringe brushed forward, loaded with “product”. Eeooow.
A few weeks passed and it was time to go back to the barber.
“Great, ” said Paddy, looking through the window, “Ali is there.”
When Paddy sat down to have his hair cut, Ali looked at it and ran a comb through it, clearly not very happy.
“Who did your hair the last time?” he said. “Where did you go?”
“Here, but it was that other guy,” said Paddy.
“I was in Barcelona,” said Ali. “That guy was standing in for me. I looked at the cameras when I got back. The complaints! Never again!”
I felt for Ali – he’s an amazing barber who works a lot of hours, who clearly takes a lot of pride in his work.
You see all these great sketchers and, little by little, their personal brand of magic sinks its way into you and gets under your skin. But it can take a long time. I can see Felix Scheinberger and his coloured pencils in my mind’s eye (something I’d never really incorporated into my sketches) and the wild and free expression of Inma Serrano. Of course, I admired it at the time, but it didn’t impinge upon my consciousness in terms of my sketching practice. A few years have passed, though, and something Inma said is finally beginning to find expression on my page: “I realised at some point that I don’t have to do what is there.” I am now starting to play with that concept: to draw what isn’t there, but which is not absent, either. It’s a way of capturing the essence, something that is often talked about but is hard to pin down. That’s what I was doing with these barber sketches: cultivating a devil-may-care approach. It’s very liberating and I can see myself going more and more carefree with form and colour, always looking to walk the fine line between control and being out of control.
Things were going great – even the short bursts of rain showers only made my sketching more energetic. Soon, I had a lovely sheet of glorious colour, and I was feeling really good. I am always telling people that it’s the constant threat of change and the unpredictability of working outdoors that breathes such energy and spontaneity into one’s work…but then my words came back to bite me on the ass, as the heavens really opened and immediately washed all my lovely colour off my page. I was forced to do the very thing I counsel against – finish it indoors, from a few photos. Bah!
More workshop tomorrow…wonder what’s in store for us?
fiona godfrey
November 30, 2018 at 12:28 am
I really like all those energetic lines in your barber drawings, particularly the blue ones on the robes. Lovely work. And how fun that you’re attending a workshop! I hope the weather improves for you all
Róisín Curé
November 30, 2018 at 1:19 pm
Thank you Fiona. Yes it was the blue lines that made me feel “no way am I going to do all these lines carefully”! And no, the weather hasn’t improved. It’s truly freezing and very wet 😣