Yesterday, Sky Arts attempted a World Record in portrait painting. The aim was to set a record for “the most people painting online and in a single venue simultaneously”. Around 200 artists were painting at a venue in London at the same time as many, many, more artists (including me) took part online. We all painted a portrait of Sir Lenny Henry who was posing live during the event. Only one hour was allowed to complete the painting – hardly any time at all!
In one word I would describe my experience as “chaotic”!
When I signed up, I was sent a ticket with an order number and a QR code; it turned out that none of these were needed on the day. Later I was sent an e-mail from Sky Arts with a web link to the Facebook Live page for viewing a live stream of the event due to begin at 14:45pm on Saturday 28th October.
I had expected that there might be technical hitches on the day and there were. At 14:45pm, a count-down began but when it got to zero nothing happened. People were posting questions asking when it was starting. After a while, someone posted saying it was delayed until 15:20pm.
15:20 came and went. Nothing happened.
After another 20 minutes or so, some music started playing and eventually live streaming began.
The presenter introduced Lenny Henry and did a short interview with him during which I took some screenshots. Then a woman from the Guinness Book of Records came on and said she would go through the rules for the record attempt. This was the first time I’d heard about the rules! I was busy transferring the screenshot to my iPad and using a tool to produce some gridlines on the photo. So I probably missed some of the rules. I did hear that everyone must start with a blank canvas. I had lightly pencilled a grid on my board already, so perhaps my painting wouldn’t be eligible to be included in the record attempt(?). Something else was said about the time period for online people to post photos of their paintings – I didn’t quite catch it but thought I heard “within the one-hour painting time” – surely that couldn’t be right.
However, no time to think about that as I had to get speed-drawing as fast as I could. I had just made a small brush mark on my board when a count-down started to begin painting. Drat – another rule violation!
I drew and painted as fast as I could. My plan was to paint only the head because of the very short time constraint. I had hoped that the camera would be focussed on Lenny Henry’s face for most of the time but – no way! There were occasional views of him sitting on the stage, but the head was far too small to make out, and very few shots of his face. I had to rely on my screenshot. Thank goodness I’d taken one at the beginning! Meanwhile, the live stream featured interviews with various people, shots of people painting at the venue, and a film about the last 10 years of Portrait Artist of the Year (Sky Arts annual portrait painting competition). This was nothing like painting live from a model!
When they announced 5 minutes painting time left, I thought I’d better stop painting and take a photo to post online. I did so and posted it here. I had a problem because I couldn’t find the hash tag I was supposed to attach to the post. I was frantically searching through e-mails from Sky Arts and my online ticket trying to find it. Then it appeared on screen for a few seconds. I just hoped I could remember it and get it right. I published the post about 5 minutes after the time was up and went to have a cup of tea, exhausted.
Later I saw that people had posted photos of their portraits on the Facebook Live stream. I posted mine there too.
I do think that Sky Arts could’ve e-mailed us the rules and given us more information about where and when to post photos of our portraits. I probably did it all wrong.
Also I wish Sky Arts had had the camera on Lenny Henry’s face for the majority of the time. Instead of the live stream being for the benefit of people painting online it seemed to be catering for a general audience.
In spite of everything, I’m glad I took part. All the practising certainly helped to improve my portrait painting. It was stressful but fun.
Previous posts about the World Record attempt:
Sandra Williams 
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