What is it like being a sketch artist in the P Diddy trial?

At a Manhattan studio brimming with pastel trays in every colour you can imagine, Jane Rosenberg says she’s burned through so many pastels in the P Diddy trial that her fingerprints have nearly vanished, and her finger protection covers have turned to black.

For the past two weeks, the American portraitist has lugged a cart full of art supplies to the federal courthouse to sketch one of the most prominent men now on trial in the United States.

No cameras have been allowed in the trial of P Diddy, real name Sean Combs, who is facing charges of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. The 55-year-old hip hop mogul has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

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In New Zealand, it's rare to see court sketch artists because if a judge permits news photographers then there's no need for an artist. Where the judge has not allowed for a camera in a trial, the same considerations may apply for a sketch artist.

In New York, Rosenberg and fellow artist Elizabeth Williams have been courtroom sketching since the '80s, recently covering trials of Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, and former partner of financier Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking.

Both are illustrating each day in the intense proceedings of the Diddy trial, which is set to go on for a further six to eight weeks.

“I'm so tired. My husband must hate me because here I have a four-day weekend and I've been working every second to try to clean my box, which I didn't do since before the Trump trial [a year ago],” Rosenberg says, adding it takes about three days to clean it.

“My box is 40 years old and held together by gaffer tape now…

“I sometimes take my fingers [to scoop the chalk pastel dust up] and dump piles of dust into the garbage. It’s just a mess. It's very dusty and dirty. I don't feel like talking about it. I don’t ever like touching pastels when I'm out of court.”

She sets up her tools an hour early in the courtroom on what limited space she shares with two other artists, gives the pastels a final polish if there’s time, and straps binoculars to her head.

“I look like a crazy person. I can't see that far away. I can barely see with the binoculars somebody's like eyeballs or anything, you know? So, I do the best I can.”

Williams uses opera-type glasses for a closer view but focuses on the overall scene. She draws on her fashion illustration background to sketch the way people walk, sit and gesture using oil pastels. 

Williams says they're under so much pressure that proper lunch breaks are now a thing of the past. Rosenberg uses what little time she has between witnesses to rush out of the room and snap a picture on her phone to send to clients.

“I don't have time to fix anything, and I feel a little like cringing sometimes and go ‘oh, why didn't I think to do this or that?'"

People online sometimes criticise their sketches of high-profile defendants, expecting “the glammed-up Hollywood version”, she says.

“Even like P Diddy, not only does he not look like [he does on red carpets], he has grey hair and a white goatee beard, he didn't look anything like that. Some people are harder likenesses or easier likenesses, you know, Trump seemed to always have an easy likeness with that hair and the eyebrows points, you know, he had an easy face.”

Christchurch artist Stephanie McEwin, 68, has looked at courtroom sketching with great interest for years but couldn’t get her foot in the door until Associated Press came back to her in 2019.

McEwin was commissioned to sketch terrorist Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 worshippers at Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre in 2019, at a hearing where the judge had not allowed cameras into the courtroom.

It's one of the few times in recent history where an artist was commissioned for a court case in New Zealand.

Journalist Steve Braunias, who has covered high-profile court cases in New Zealand over 30 years, says it’s not clear if we ever had a tradition of using courtroom sketch artists. Even when newsrooms were bustling with reporters, he doesn’t recall seeing them.

Massey University journalism associate professor James Hollings believes the main reason is, when a judge allows for a camera to be present, most media would pull imagery from this source, and news organisations would find it harder to justify the expense of a sketch artist.

Rosenberg, who last year released a book, Drawn Testimony, about her 40-year career, says it’s the first time she has had so much work that she couldn’t do a single painting for galleries this year.

But it comes in spurts and court sketch artists have dwindled, she says.

“When I first started, when I'd go to a case, there'd be 17 artists.

“What happened now is you can work for more than one station because there's not enough in the courtroom to allow everybody … So now it's non-exclusive, so there's really very few artists that survived and I guess I'm one of the few lucky ones. There's not that many of us.”

Braunias believes it’s a missed opportunity for New Zealand because sketch artists require less set-up than a camera and don’t grab as much attention during the trial.

“There’s a fascination and artistry to a courtroom sketch which is absent in courtroom photography. Courtroom photography by its very nature and limitations is quite constrained. It’s often a photograph of an accused person behind glass in the dock and it’s from a distance – these are all sort of court-appointed rules the judge lays down.”