Rui Charnock

Live illustrator, Comporta weddings

Comporta is about 98 km from Lisbon, an hour and three quarters over the bridge, which puts a Comporta wedding inside Rui Charnock's included travel radius with no overnight charge. He draws in ink and watercolour on the day, at about two finished illustrations for every hour booked.

Rice fields, umbrella pines, a lot of sky and almost no hard edges. Comporta is the easiest place in Portugal to draw badly, because there is nothing to hide behind.

Travel and logistics

Measured by road from the Lisbon studio to Comporta. Drive times exclude traffic; I plan against an hour more than each of them.
By road from Lisbon98 km
Drive time1 h 42 min
Travel chargeIncluded within X km
Night beforeNo
Minimum booking4 hours

All travel bands, for the whole country

Drawing flat light and pale sand

The palette here is already nearly white. Sand, linen, bleached wood, and a sky that goes almost colourless at midday. Put a normal wedding palette on that and it looks like a different day.

So Comporta drawings come out with more paper showing than anywhere else I work — the white is doing the describing, and one blue wash carries the rest.

Outdoor, all day

Comporta weddings tend to run outside from start to finish. That is good for drawing and hard on materials: sand gets into everything and the wind off the Atlantic picks up around five.

Practically, it means I bring a board rather than an easel and work standing.

From Lisbon

Ninety-eight km and about an hour and three quarters over the bridge, which puts it comfortably inside a day and inside the included radius. No accommodation line unless you want me there for getting-ready.

Marrying in Comporta? Send the date and the venue and I will tell you if I am free.

Check your date WhatsApp

Venues drawn in Comporta

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

Most Comporta couples also look at Melides, twenty minutes further south along the same road, and at the Alentejo proper once they realise how much cheaper an inland quinta is.

Coming from Lisbon it is one bridge and one straight road, which is why it stays inside the no-travel-fee band despite the distance.

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.

Leave blank if it is not fixed yet.

I reply within 24 hours.

Check your date WhatsApp