So at work one day a drawing was brought in for framing which reeked of a quality rarely seen in my not-exactly-London city. It turned out to be a drawing by Travis Seymour and was exquisitely rendered in that unmistakeable atelier way. The person bringing it in for framing turned out to be the equally skilled Nancy Fletcher of the B.P. Portrait Award 2012 fame. After a brief conversation she invited me to an exhibition of Travis’ work that was being held nearby and during that exhibition I was able to actually see Nancy working on just such an atelier quality drawing.

She perfectly patiently answered my many questions and gave me some advice re materials and the like which, after not really being at all interested in drawing in dry media, fired me up enough to put (new) pencil to (new) paper and draw this portrait of my luthier partner who (my partner, that is) at the time had her hair done up all fancily for her birthday.

I’ve yet to annul my aversion to dry media completely though – but this was a start.