TV sketches

I think I'm getting obsessed with doing these sketches! Normally, I find watching the news depressing but when watching it with an eye for an interesting face it suddenly becomes a mine of inspiration! This morning I caught two faces I was looking out for - top left, reporter Tim Marshall, who is very knowledgeable about the military and military tactics, and below him, presenter Andrew Wilson, whose face and voice are very distinctive, and, I just found out now, used to be a military man. Wilson makes everything sound like a drama and I often think he could be introducing a Hollywood blockbuster - unfortunately he took the same tone when he was in Portugal following the poor parents of Madeline McCann. To the left is Guardian reporter Michael White. I like doing faces with glasses as you can use the shape of the glasses as a guide for placing the eyes.

















One face I was looking out for was Adam Boulton's, here on the left. He has such a heavy brow! I didn't quite capture it here though. What I like about Sky News is the lighting, as the high contrast takes away the superfluous detail and reduces everything to it's bare essentials. It's a big change for me to 'capture the essence'! On the right is guest reporter Tom Rivers, of ABC and here the light and the angle of his glasses has made his eyes disappear, reminding me of Drooper the lion from the Banana Splits!





















Bottom left is Jacquie Beltrao, sports presenter. She's a no-nonsense, down to earth type who takes Eamonn Holmes's teasing in her stride but usually I'm wondering how she can stand to have her fringe in her eyes - it moves as she blinks! Speaking of hair, that miserable old whatsit, top right is me, at the hairdressers. Not a Sky News presenter or a TV sketch but I drew myself here as it was the sketchbook I had on me when the hairdresser left me waiting, or should I say simmering, for 25 minutes while she made some phone calls! She regularly keeps us waiting for at least 15 minutes and I suspect its a 'power thing' she has, but I had to call her once when Alex was going to be 10 minutes late for his appointment and she gave me the spiel about making all her bookings late and she couldn't possibly fit him in - for a cut that would take only 10 minutes! So when she was actually on time for a change, I got my hopes up. Twenty five minutes later, I was very angry and told her if she wasn't going to do my hair now, I was leaving. Probably not a good idea to leave your hair in the hands of an irate hairdresser but that will be the last time. If only I was more like Jacquie - I'm sure she wouldn't have put up with it, but then again, I'm sure no-one would have dared to keep her waiting!