The sad tale of my father’s short modelling career

For January 2014’s Camping and Caravanning Club magazine I was retired to illustrate a jovial barman, serving up a pint of ale.

Lovely.

I usually prefer to work from life, but sometimes a little tweaking of life is required.

I searched on the internet for some suitable reference photographs first and, while I found some nice photographs of bar staff and bars, I couldn’t find a photograph which showed the barman stood at the bar serving up that pint.

So I did what i usually do in this situation and mocked up the situation at home.

Now, remember, I had my reference photographs for the pumps and in case I decided to use any of the background optics and such like (In fact I didn’t use any background at all, to focus the illustration on the jovial barman.

It just happened that my parents were visiting that weekend – so I used my father as a stand-in barman.

– I don’t actually have a bar set up in my home – but we do have an ironing board!

Nor was I planning on downing a pint of ale just at the moment in time, so I used a pint glass of diluted orange juice instead.

… and several photographs later – I managed to get what I thought was a pretty good photograph of …

… my jovial looking father serving me a glass of orange juice across an ironing board.

And so began my father’s modelling career …

Unfortunately …

The magazine requested a younger model. So I quickly drew out a replacement head

Transplanted it onto my father’s body.

And that’s the photograph which was used in the magazine. Still recognisable as my father – only, it kind of looks like he has a toupee on!

George Midgley is still available for modelling work. Toupee not included.