Ken Dodd used to claim, during his stage act, that he could “speak Yorkshire”. His demonstration consisted of the phrase, “‘Ow much?”* He was often laughed at for that one, but I found myself using it today. A friend of mine, of whom a good part of his work is portraiture, invited me to join him in obtaining a model for the day so that we could paint her portrait. (I think that he has run out of members of his family.) It seemed like a fun idea at the time. I’ve often toyed with the idea of doing a portrait, but never progressed beyond sketches. So I said “Yes”. He ‘phoned this afternoon to say that everything is fixed up. The session will last (of course with breaks) from 9.30 until 4.00! “‘Ow much?” That’s an awful lot of time! My regular life-drawing class is two hours long, and that with a half-time cup of tea.
I took a very deep breath and said, “Yes”. It really will be an interesting challenge, and what is the point of my moaning about never having the opportunity to try portraiture if I chicken out on an opportunity when it is offered to me? It does look as if I’m going to have to give some preparatory thought to this one. Medium? Format? At the moment I’ve absolutely no idea.
*Legend has it that folk from Yorkshire are particularly tight-fisted.