Hannah Fry’s Royal Society Portrait and Sharpie Drawing Challenge

Hannah Fry’s portrait now hangs in the Royal Society in London, a work created by Chloe Barnes, the winner of the TV competition Sky Portrait Artist. The official portrait story is featured on the Objectivity channel, where the process of its creation is explored in detail.

The Drawing Challenge

During a light‑hearted segment on the Numberphile channel, Hannah Fry is challenged to draw Chloe Barnes using Sharpies on brown paper. She remarks that she usually spends time writing “beautiful equations” with a fountain pen and feels that skill “does not translate to portraits.” Chloe notes that she loved math at A‑level and calls it her second favourite subject.

Artistic Perspectives

Chloe explains that her artistic process focuses on “blocks of shadow rather than outlining,” emphasizing the messiness of capturing form. Hannah attempts to frame the drawing through the lens of “curvature of three‑dimensional surfaces,” saying, “I’m going to do it like they do in school. I mean, it’s basically curvature of threedimensional surfaces, isn’t it?” She also jokes, “This is the worst thing I’ve ever been asked to do in my entire life.”

Chloe finds sitting for a portrait therapeutic, yet admits she becomes envious of the artist, noting she constantly watches faces in public, looking for “characterful” features to paint. She adds, “My advice is kind of commit to the messiness because I always think people know what they’re doing when they do it like this.”

Evaluation

Keith Moore, head librarian at the Royal Society, humorously declines to hang the resulting sketch, stating it will join his “storage unit full of brown papers.” He quips, “I have a storage unit full of brown papers, and this is going to join it,” and jokes that the Turner Prize Committee could “stand down for just the moment.”