Karl Rudziak is a Portsmouth artist working on his project “We Don’t Need Culture” to meet with and draw the people of Portsmouth and ultimately create 50 paintings.
My photography project is to capture the moment, documentary style, of Karl sketching in amongst the people of Somerstown in the centre of Portsmouth. I’m trying to blend in and go un-noticed while Karl chats with the locals, gains their trust and produces his sketches.
Karl can produce a rough sketch in a few minutes and a detailed sketch in under an hour and it is interesting to watch him build up the sitter’s likeness from a blank sheet of paper.
The first sitter was Rene (pronounced ‘Reenee’) who sat happily gazing at a particular point on the wall to try and keep the pose while chatting to her friends in Edgbaston House. Rene’s jumper got a great deal of attention the the sketch as it had a fine weave which was nicely reproduced on paper.
I used two cameras: my Nikon SLR to create a time lapse over Karl’s shoulder (more on that in a later post) and my X100s to capture some natural light candid portraits of Karl, Rene and anyone else who is in the common room at the time. which are shown in this gallery.
