COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown impacted so many industries and events it’s impossible to keep count. Museums and galleries that would normally be bustling with people were now empty and large events were cancelled with little to no intention of rescheduling. As a result of this, the internet became the answer. Suddenly events were taking place remotely and people from all over the world were meeting virtually.
A similar thing was happening in the scientific world. Now, I won’t pretend that I know about the geological conferences and events that take place each year nor will I pretend that I would’ve been able to go to them normally. All I know is that I have an interest in geoheritage and fossils and I was lucky enough to work on a project in my second year of University with Dr Jack Matthews at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH) illustrating Ediacaran organisms. As these geological conferences and events were being cancelled I noticed something on my twitter feed - The Oxford Geoheritage Virtual Conference (OxGVC) was happening and not only could anyone sign up - it was also free. Anything free and with the opportunity to draw along to had me interested. I signed up, got my confirmation email with links where all the online sessions would happen and waited for the conference to begin. Hosted by Dr Jack Matthews, Dr Lucie Kubalíková, Dr Helena Tukiainen, Dr Lubomir Strba and Dr Taha Yours Arrad, the virtual conference promised 60 talks (both flash talks and longer lectures) from all over the world and it definitely did not disappoint! From the very beginning people were presenting their work live from Brazil, Morocco and New Zealand and we were able to ask questions in real time in the on screen chat.
As well as being an opportunity to learn about geoheritage projects, having over 60 speakers throughout the week was also a great way for me to practice portrait drawings - but what started out as practice soon developed into a little project. By mid week I had 30 portraits and thought “what am I going to do with these?”. Then I remembered being in year 1 or 2 at primary school and getting to do the infamous class tea towel. For anyone not familiar with this, it’s sort of a school tradition here in the UK. Each child gets to draw a self portrait which is then added to the class tea towel and parents can buy a copy to keep. My sister and I still have ours and they’re a great laugh to look back on which is why I was beginning to think that making one for the conference would be a great idea. It would be a nice way for all the speakers to remember the event and I was guessing that not many of them would’ve had their portrait drawn before. Hoping I wouldn’t offend anyone, I got to work drawing the remaining speakers each day and collating them each evening. Even now I think it’s a wonder that I managed to get all 60 speakers drawn. It’s common knowledge in our house that our WiFi isn’t the best and I was sat outside in the garden (far, far away from the WiFi router). The more people I drew the more anxious I was that the wifi was going to cut out. I was completely invested in making this tea towel and it would hardly work if I had to miss one or two people off because I’d missed their talk at the very end. Somehow though the signal stayed strong and I managed to see everyone’s face long enough to get a portrait done. This is probably thanks to my Dad as he kindly agreed to clear his work schedule and only took zoom calls in the mornings before the conference and in the evenings once it had finished for the day. As mentioned earlier our poor WiFi was never going to manage both and Dad, sometimes sacrifices have to be made!
The finished virtual tea-towel
I have to admit here, I even surprised myself with this project. For as long as I can remember people were my least favourite thing to draw and I always struggled to get a likeness. Even at A- Level art whilst everyone was painting portraits - I was there drawing plants. Now there’s nothing wrong with drawing plants but looking back it is quite impressive how long I managed to put off drawing people. One of the few times I did do a portrait it was of my mum and it was for an A-Level project. I couldn’t quite get her hair right so I drew her completely bald instead (I’m very sorry mum!) I proudly handed it in and never admitted to my art teacher that it was supposed to be my mum. He’d met her before and knew with certainty that she had hair. I must have done something right though because when she saw it, mum was puzzled and asked me why I’d drawn her long dead father. Somehow I’d managed to capture a similarity although she was quick to tell me that he did used to have hair. Considering all this, I wouldn’t have thought that at the end of the week I’d have drawn over 60 people but here we are and I have! I think the time constraints really helped me focus on how to get a likeness with the least amount of work. Some of the talks were only 5 minutes long so there wasn’t really time for me to be picky with details or try too hard. It was more instinctive and impulsive. For these portraits I used Tombow brush pens which I discovered in my third year of University when I was drawing out in Berlin with one of my tutors on a course trip. She had a seemingly unlimited supply of Tombows and kindly let me try some out and from then on brush pens have become my go-to pen choice.
The first drawings in Berlin using Tombow pens Brush pen practice once I got back home and bought some myself
As well as cancelling conferences and events around the world, COVID-19 also cancelled all my holiday plans. Now I know this isn’t high on the list of awful things that have happened as a result of the pandemic but it was still sad for me. As luck would have it though, with so many speakers from all around the world, many were including photos of their areas of work within their talks. I couldn’t resist drawing all the wonderful locations on show. From New Zealand to Brazil, Peru to the UAE, this conference had it all and it was like going on a little holiday from my back garden.
A selection of drawings from the week
Each evening I uploaded the day’s drawings to the OxGVC facebook page and the response was amazing and far greater than I imagined it would be. It was great to see people find the drawings from their talks and by the end of the week I had fellow delegates and some of the speakers contacting me and letting me know when their talks were and that it would be great if I could do some drawings of them. Of course, I drew whenever I could and everyone was pleased with the results.
Even though the illustrations were going down well on the facebook page each day, I was still a little uncertain when I uploaded the tea towel on the Friday evening for everyone to see. No one had asked me to do this and I hadn’t mentioned anything about it in case it went horribly wrong. I uploaded it to Facebook then swiftly closed the tab and told myself I’d look later. Had I offended everyone? Would someone be like…Oh no! do I really look like that? Then the likes started appearing and people were leaving lovely comments and having fun finding themselves and the people they knew on the tea towel. If anyone was offended by how they’d been drawn they were kind enough to keep it to themselves. After all, what’s a virtual conferences without a virtual souvenir tea towel?
I am so proud of this project and it has helped me so much develop my portrait skills. We’re still a long way off a full body though - everyone shall remain floating heads for now.
If any organisers are reading this - thank you so much for a wonderful conference and hopefully there’ll be more in the future!