Being a Courtroom Artist

Pat King during his first appearance in court.

While updating my social media accounts, I was intending on simply posting some of my current court art from the past year. However, I began to reflect on how and why I came to drawing in court to begin with and thought I would share it here as well.

It was never something I wanted to do in the first place, and frankly I was nervous about going into court and maybe failing miserably at it.

My first opportunity to do a court sketch came from the Ottawa Citizen at the Ontario Courthouse downtown. After moving from metro Toronto to an Ottawa suburb, I was looking for any excuse get out of the house and at the very least grab a coffee and sandwich at a Starbucks or café downtown.

Reflecting back on this now, I realize my motivation wasn't just getting out of the house, it was saying "yes" to a new opportunity. I wasn't doing it for the money - I was doing it because it was new, scary, and a challenge. Actually, as it turns out, it wasn't that scary. The courts arewelcoming and I got to work along side some great reporters and producers.

Mike Duffy in the final days of his court appearance.

I've done some really good drawings and a lot of awful ones too. The not so great ones I try not to critique too harshly, instead judge them on the situation and the time I had to do them in. Overall my average is pretty good and has led to more doors being opened for me as well as my 15 minutes of fame being interviewed on Canada Am and CBC radio.

Over the years I've drawn some really bad people, a lot that weren’t bad but had made wrong choices and some that people thought were bad but ultimately proved their innocence.

No matter the subject, it's all very interesting and though you can’t really make a great living as a courtroom artist, it's turned out to be a great part-time job and I love doing it.

Tamara Lich during one of her many bail hearings.