Speechwriting Conference | Reportage Illustration


At a conference where I was myself due to speak, I spent the time beforehand sketching the other speakers:

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Reportage illustration: going out into the world, seeing things, and drawing them. This is journalism, as much as anything I ever did as a writer on newspapers and magazines.

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I was sitting in the back row, and assumed I was not being watched.

After I finished the last drawing, of Max Atkinson, the woman beside me asked how I did them.

I explained that I start with a rapid pen sketch in my notebook, and add colour on my iPhone photos app – marker pens are a bit heavy to carry everywhere, and the coloured pencils I have don’t produce such brilliant saturated colour.

Here is the original sketch of Max, just as it remains in my sketchbook:

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