Birling Day
Mar. 20th, 2016 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinYesterday being the Six Nations final, and my first day back in England, I thought it appropriate to hit the pub and draw Mr Birling.
There's a bit of a back story here. In December I had the chance to meet Mr Finnemore(!!) and spend a little time sketching with him(!!!). While doing so I asked him how he would draw Mr Birling, as I had a fairly vague picture of him in my head and no luck at all getting it out on paper. He drew a fantastic Mr B which I very foolishly did not make any record of, but I've tried to do my best to reproduce him here, with my own twist. John's design was better.
It was funny as he was drawing him, because it was so not how I pictured Mr Birling, and yet it was exactly Mr Birling, and it made me realise there is a significant transatlantic split in how one pictures 'angry old rich man.' Americans and Canadians, I think, default to a jowly fist of a grumpy businessman. In a country which still has an aristocracy, being upper-class does not equate to having succeeded in business, but rather having the right family ties, having gone to the sort of school where they strap you to a board for good posture, and a certain sense of looking at the world down the length of your nose. Someone who has made their fortune in trade is a tier below real posh. My Mr Birling, inasmuch as I could see him at all, was firmly in the Rich Businessman genre, but I hope I've taken the lesson and got a bit more of the Real Gentry in this one.
... Though honestly I'll be happy if I've merely managed to capture the fact that Mr Finnemore's Mr Birling had the silhouette of a whisky bottle.
There's a bit of a back story here. In December I had the chance to meet Mr Finnemore(!!) and spend a little time sketching with him(!!!). While doing so I asked him how he would draw Mr Birling, as I had a fairly vague picture of him in my head and no luck at all getting it out on paper. He drew a fantastic Mr B which I very foolishly did not make any record of, but I've tried to do my best to reproduce him here, with my own twist. John's design was better.
It was funny as he was drawing him, because it was so not how I pictured Mr Birling, and yet it was exactly Mr Birling, and it made me realise there is a significant transatlantic split in how one pictures 'angry old rich man.' Americans and Canadians, I think, default to a jowly fist of a grumpy businessman. In a country which still has an aristocracy, being upper-class does not equate to having succeeded in business, but rather having the right family ties, having gone to the sort of school where they strap you to a board for good posture, and a certain sense of looking at the world down the length of your nose. Someone who has made their fortune in trade is a tier below real posh. My Mr Birling, inasmuch as I could see him at all, was firmly in the Rich Businessman genre, but I hope I've taken the lesson and got a bit more of the Real Gentry in this one.
... Though honestly I'll be happy if I've merely managed to capture the fact that Mr Finnemore's Mr Birling had the silhouette of a whisky bottle.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-20 10:05 pm (UTC)And if I only had the chance to hang out with Mr Finnemore...
no subject
Date: 2016-03-21 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-21 01:48 am (UTC)And ... You sketched with John Finnemore? EEEEEEEEEE!
no subject
Date: 2016-03-21 11:19 am (UTC)