Sit Down With Our #090 Featured Artist
Paul Bainbridge
Featured Artist / #133 ScrawlrBox
Paul (b. 1975) is an English based artist from Liverpool. With no formal qualifications besides the obligatory GCSE’s, he is a self-taught hobbyist artist. From an early age, he was always found with a pencil in hand drawing his favourite comic book characters (and still dabbles in the occasional superhero piece when the urge strikes!) Portrait workbegan roughly 17 years ago when his now wife asked for a drawing of her dog, and he hasn’t looked back since.
Concentrating on domestic animals and people, he has also been known, when commissioned, to create pieces of wild animals too. He works primarily with graphite but has recently branched out into pastels and charcoal. When not drawing, he spends his time looking after his various pets and playing the ukulele.
You’ve been a familiar face inthe ScrawlrBox community for quite some time. Thank you for being our featuredartist! You’ve spent years cheering on other artists in the community. How does it feel to now be the artist inspiring everyone else?
This is truly one of the scariest things I’ve ever done! I’ve been a subscriber for some time,and I’ve loved reading about the featured artists and the pieces they have contributed to each box, knowing that I’m one of them now is very daunting to say the least.
Have any ScrawlrBox materials completely changed the way you approach your artwork?
The biggest change has weirdly beenwith paper. I would primarily use printer paper because it was cheap and bright white, so when I was churning out a newA4 portrait every other day, it was ideal. I honestly can’t remember the last time I used the printer paper now that I’m a paper snob! I never thought I’d use A5, so most of my pads just gathered dust, but now I reach for that size more often than not, and don’t get me started on Pastelmat!
Have you ever fallen in love with a medium you didn’t expect to enjoy?
Those stupidly beautiful pastel pencils!I now have several sets, and I just loveusing them and seeing the colours go down. Being able to use torture chalk effectively without making a mess, was a lightbulb moment for me. A close second is charcoal after box #130 showed me a way of using them I’d never tried before. I even managed to use them for the background of a recent commission piece of Godzilla for a fellow scrawlr.
What part of making a piece do you enjoy the most?
On every portrait, it’s always the eyes.If I get the eyes right, the rest just clicks into place, and I can relax and enjoy the process. If I find out that a piece has brought a happy tear to someone’s eye, then that’s the biggest compliment I can think of.