Rui Charnock
Rui Charnock is a live wedding and event illustrator based in Lisbon, Portugal. He works in ink and watercolour, drawing during the event itself rather than from photographs, and covers weddings across Portugal including Lisbon, Sintra, Cascais, Comporta, the Alentejo, the Algarve and the Douro Valley.
The work
Ink line and watercolour, drawn from life, at speed. The line goes down once and stays where it lands — there is no rubbing out at a wedding, and the drawings are better for it.
The palette on this site is not a brand palette. It is sampled straight out of the drawings: the blue that does most of the work, the yellow that turns up in nearly everything, and one crimson used sparingly.
Working at weddings
A wedding is not a life-drawing class. Nobody holds still, the light changes every twenty minutes, and the best thing in the room happens behind you.
So I work small, fast and standing, and I stay out of the photographer's frame. Suppliers who have worked with me will tell you I am easy to have around, which matters more than it sounds.
Where
Lisbon is home, which puts Sintra, Cascais, Comporta and most of the Alentejo inside a comfortable drive. The Algarve and the Douro are regular, planned trips rather than day runs.
I work anywhere in Portugal. The coverage page gives the driving time, the travel band and the minimum booking for every part of the country as numbers rather than as a promise.
The work, and the man doing it
Based in Lisbon. Working anywhere in Portugal.
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Tell me when and where. If I am free, I will come back with what it costs and roughly how the day would run — usually the same evening.