Live wedding painter, Algarve
Booking a live wedding painter for an Algarve wedding from Lisbon means an overnight trip: the drive is 235 to 285 km depending on where you are, and three to three and three-quarter hours each way, so accommodation appears as a line on the quote at cost. Rui Charnock comes down the night before and starts at getting-ready.
The Algarve is a planned trip from Lisbon, not a day run. That is fine, and it changes two things you should know about up front.
Travel and logistics
| By road from Lisbon | 255 km |
|---|---|
| Drive time | 3 h 25 min |
| Travel charge | At cost, plus one night |
| Night before | Yes |
| Minimum booking | 6 hours |
What the drive means for your booking
I come down the night before. That means I am on site rested and early, and it means an accommodation line on your quote rather than a surprise.
It also means I can start at getting-ready without anyone doing sums about whether the A2 will behave. Lagos is 237 km, Loulé 255, Faro 284 — three and a quarter hours at the western end, three and three quarters at the eastern.
Drawing an Algarve wedding
Light here is the hard part. Between two and five it is flat and brutal and washes bleach out on the paper before they settle; after six it is the best light in Portugal and everything works.
So I plan the illustration work around the ends of the day and put guest portraits in the middle, under cover, where the paper behaves.
Coastal venues and wind
Anywhere on a cliff, the wind is a real constraint — loose watercolour paper and an Atlantic breeze do not co-operate. I work smaller and clip everything down, which is worth knowing if your ceremony is somewhere exposed.
The sheltered end of the region behaves completely differently. Inland of Silves or up behind Tavira there is no wind at all and the afternoons are ten degrees hotter, which moves the problem from the paper to the water.
Marrying in The Algarve? Send the date and the venue and I will tell you if I am free.
Check your date WhatsAppVenues drawn in The Algarve
No venue in this region is named on the site yet. Venue pages go up once there is work from the venue to put on them, which is the whole point of having them — a list of places I would be willing to drive to is not information.
Nearby, and what changes
Between Lisbon and the Algarve, the Alentejo is the halfway point in every sense — an hour and a half closer, and a day trip rather than an overnight.
The travel bands for every distance from the studio are set out on the coverage page, including what an Algarve overnight actually adds to a quote.
What you actually get
- About two finished illustrations for every hour booked — roughly twelve across a six-hour wedding, plus fifty to seventy guest portraits if portraits are included.Getting ready, the ceremony, the speeches, the first dance.
- Guest portraits handed over on the night, as favours.Two or three minutes a face. People queue for them.
- Finished in studio, delivered within two weeks.Scanned at archival resolution. Prints and the original both come to you.
- From €X. Travel included within X km of Lisbon.Full breakdown on the pricing page. Nothing behind a form.
Check your date
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.