George Baker is one of my oldest friends. We met in our first year of university and got on straight away. He was, without question, one of the smartest people in the room. But what made him easy to love was how comfortable he was in his own skin. He grew up on a boat, joined the Navy, and never once seemed embarrassed by the jokes that come with that. He just wore it well.
During lockdown, when everyone else’s world shrank, George’s shrank in a different way. Navy discipline meant he had to stick to rules the rest of us weren’t bound by. We ended up in the same household through what we nicknamed dark January, exams and lockdown colliding at once, and that’s when our friendship really settled into something solid. When he graduated, he bought tickets for all of us to be there. I got a fever the day before and couldn’t make it, which I still regret. But friends who did make it talked about standing on the hill above the naval college, and how it felt like being part of something enormous.
George was always generous about my work. When I mentioned wanting to paint a portrait of him and his dad, he sent over a photo without a second thought. I felt surprisingly little pressure taking it on. Partly because there was no deadline. Mostly because I understood exactly the weight George would want the piece to carry.
The technique leaned heavily on Sargent. Very fine, careful pencil on the faces, especially his dad’s, where you have to earn every wrinkle and freckle without ageing him a year past or short of where he actually is. Then much looser, more expressive charcoal everywhere else, the background, the clothing. That contrast is deliberate. The eye goes straight to the face, the way it does with a real person, and the looseness around it creates a kind of atmosphere instead of competing with it.
Some of the most peaceful hours I’ve had in London came out of working on this piece, in a quiet studio space my girlfriend had access to through work, sitting alongside her while she revised for exams. It’s one of those stretches of time that reminded me, plainly, this is what I want to be doing with my life.
I didn’t feel guilty charging George for it. He was doing well, and more than that, he wanted it. What it really came down to was what the portrait meant. A single parent who’d raised a son through a demanding military sixth form, into university, out the other side, into a career he was visibly proud of. Capturing that pride, and having George recognise it in the finished piece, is exactly what I want commission work to do.
You can see the finished piece here: Battle Ready Baker. If you’d like something similar, have a look at Trois Crayon Portraits, drawn in the same charcoal, sanguine and sepia technique, from £50.
Read more from the studio:
Why I Still Paint Commissions · On Pet Portraits · On The Rite of Spring