Russell Tovey

Russell Tovey

Thanks to Sky Arts, I got a chance to draw actor and one of this year’s Turner Prize judges, Russell Tovey, today in a one-hour session of Portrait Artist of the Week. I won’t be standing by the phone next week to find out if I’ve won the coveted title as I’ve already seen some of the competition, however some artists had an advantage as they took the chance to start 3 hours earlier as the live programme was preceded by a podcast session. One hour drawing from a screen was enough for me.

At first I thought that perhaps I’d do better if he just sat still instead of chatting to the artist painting his portrait but really that was the point of the session. I could have drawn from a photograph otherwise. The way his expression changed and the way the light changed made the session feel similar to drawing someone in real life.

Three Fruits

fruit

This was all the fruit that I could muster for my still life. Unlike the vegetables I’ve been drawing, this time I felt that I had to add colour.

The apple is a British-grown Royal Gala, originally a hybrid bred from Golden Delicious and Gala. According to Wikipedia, ‘it now accounts for about 20% of the total volume of the commercial production of eating apples in the UK.’