Sketch or Photo?
This Monday morning, my mind is on a poll I ran recently asking writers whether their work was more like a rough pencil sketch or a photographic oil painting. The reason for my wondering comes from something I once watched on the idiot’s lantern that really stuck with me, so here it is, an anecdote with at least a passing relevance to the world of writing. As a disclaimer, though, this is just my recollection of what I saw, and my memory is quite the fabulist. So, many moons ago I caught the last few minutes of a daytime TV show, a contest in which three artists were charged with doing the portrait of a guest celebrity. The first was using watercolours, the second acrylic paints, and the third oils. They’d just finished when I tuned in, and the celebrity was looking at each effort in turn before choosing his favourite. Portrait one, the watercolour, was really good, at least to this layman’s eye. The artist had done a pretty faithful rendering, capturing the pose and expression nicely ...