Ken Fletcher

Ken is a well-known fan artist whom I met when I was living in Minneapolis in the early '80s. I don't know him well, but he's always struck me as a sweet soul.
If memory serves, I did it towards the end of a Not-Anokon (so-called because it was not in Anoka, MN) during which I had done a while bunch of portraits. Most of them were crummy, one or two were okay, but in this one, inspiration seemed to alight gently. Unlike the other portraits elsewhere in this site, this one only took about an hour and a half.
In a lot of ways, this is probably the best portrait I've ever done, for my taste. The composition came out almost magically right, and the darn thing's actually a recognizable likeness of Ken. I am especially pleased with the way detail is focused on Ken's face and expression, and the rest of the image is just sort of suggested with light lines. My pencil strokes are more than usually fluid and light.

original: 9"x12", charcoal, circa 1980-81

And of, course perfect, symetry is achieved since, if I recall correctly, Ken was drawing me.

--Saturday, 23 August 1997