Here is a selection of the preparatory drawings I started at Port Talbot Steelworks in October last year. These drawings began as quick sketches made from life, each taking between 5 and 15 minutes, and were then worked back into using the photographs that I took as reference. They are working drawings and not intended to be finished portraits in themselves, but are a useful starting point for me to begin the final paintings. They are a really important part of the whole process for me, as they allow for time to get to know the face of the subject.
I was able to spend two days at the Steelworks in Port Talbot back in October last year, when Tata Steel UK allowed me onsite to begin a project to create a series of portraits of steel workers there. I met sixteen employees who represented the wide range of different roles and expertise of those working at the steelworks. I made some quick sketches with the sitters which I continued to work into following my visit to use as my preparatory drawings for the final portraits. I also made audio interviews with each sitter to accompany the paintings. I spent the first day at the steel production side of the site, and the second over at the two blast furnaces, which were in the process of being decommissioned when I visited, having already "gone cold" (or almost - one was still smoking after almost a month!). It was an inspiring experience for me to meet some of the people that work at Port Talbot, and I was grateful that Tata Steel UK gave me the opportunity to visit the site, which I had been fascinated by since being a small kid, always looking out the window of the car as my parents drove along the M4 on the way to see my grandparents in nearby Gorseinon. I met Lloyd a few years ago and have been lucky enough to spend some time recording audio interviews and making some paintings and drawings in his workshop, where his radiator-repair business has been based now for over forty years. At the age of eighty-five, Lloyd is still working and bringing his knowledge, experience and skill to repairing car radiators, usually concluding his working day at 3pm. I've been working on a series of portrait studies of Lloyd and aim to bring the paintings and drawings together to be accompanied by some of the audio recordings. Lloyd is a real inspiration, with such an eventful and long working life; he has so many brilliant stories and memories to tell. Below is a short clip of Lloyd speaking about how a chance occurrence that happened on a building site he was working on in London in the 1960s turned out to be a fortuitous change of fortune, giving him an opportunity to demonstrate his skill with welding - one of the trades he had learnt growing up in Jamaica. Below are a few of the drawings and paintings I have made of Lloyd (one painting also includes Julie, Lloyd's wife, who works with him in the workshop). The drawing is made with pastel pencil and the two paintings are watercolour and colour pencil. Before Vic retired I interviewed him about his long working life as a carpenter. Here is a very short clip from the audio interview I made with Vic, talking about his workmates. At some point I would like to present more of the interview I made with him as a piece of social documentary to accompany the drawings and paintings I made of him. |
Tom JohnsonWelcome to my website - Archives
January 2025
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