Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Video: Al Hirschfeld Draws

When Al Hirschfeld was 99 years old, Susan Dryfoos filmed him drawing Paul Newman, who was then appearing in a revival of "Our Town."

The drawing took 8 hours.

This near-silent short film shows us the process of one drawing; going from lose pencils to the final inking with a crowquill dip pen. The camera gets in close, and you can hear the scratch of his pen. I noticed that there was no TV, no radio. No distractions from the concentration of the late Mr. Hirschfeld.


Ger Apeldoorn said...

The surprise for me is not how he scratches his lines as if they were done in one go, but the fact that there are some lines he actually does in one go.

"Would you consider stopping now, darling?"

"I will stop whenever you say so."


TimHarries said...

Fascinating stuff, Enjoyed watching that.

Thanks for posting it Mike