The Wedding Party

Richard by Florence

My thanks to Florence for this portrait, drawn at Isabel and Declan’s wedding celebration in Mexborough last month. Colour added by me in Adobe Illustrator. That’s how I’d like to look (I requested a bit more hair on top) so I’ll update my social media.

Wooded hillside near Mexborough

Setting out for the celebrations, I packed everything that I needed for sketching – fountain pens, water-brush, A6 sketchbook – then forgot to pack the bag itself, so for the weekend it was back to basics, borrowing Barbara’s Uniball signo gel pen, which is great for drawing, and her notebook, which luckily is unlined.

View from our room at the Pastures Grange Best Western Hotel.

Five minutes walk down the road from our hotel, the Pastures Grange at Mexborough, Denaby Ings Yorkshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve lies alongside the river on the Doncaster and Worksop extension of the Trans-Pennine Trail. Gadwall and heron joined mallards, coot and moorhen on a small reed-fringed lagoon.

After the buffet . . .

As soon as the music started I had to give up any attempt at chatting and switched to drawing.

Florence joined me and we took turns with the one-and-only sketchbook.

I was impressed by the way she caught the action of the dancers, including the bride performing a forward roll.

party girl
Party girl by Florence.