Hoan Kiem’s lakeside painters: Unique trade in Hanoi

Hoan Kiem Lake is home to so many "lakeside artists" that it could be called the "largest center for portrait sketching" in Vietnam.

The “open studios” of “lakeside painters” around the shores of Hoan Kiem Lake. Photo: Pham Duy Binh

These painters are either professionals or amateurs who claim to be wanderers accompanied by colors and a burning passion for painting. Their unique way of working produces captivating pieces while making them and everyone else happy.

 “Shoulder poles” of painters

If you take a walk around Hoan Kiem Lake on an autumn day, you can easily encounter up to a dozen painters. They usually arrive around 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning, crowd the area even more in the afternoon and evening, and leave late into the night. Instead of painting landscapes, they earn their living by drawing portraits.

Their "shoulder poles" are cluttered with easels, drawing paper, a few pencils, several chairs, and sketches they have previously made to "advertise" their service. After setting up, they sit down and wait for visitors to come by.

A local artist works with great passion. Photo: Pham Duy Binh

"I don't know who was the first person to draw by the lake, or when it happened. I just saw people sitting there and making a living, so I joined them... I remember the price of a drawing used to be only about 50,000 Vietnamese dongs, but now it's 200,000 to 300,000 dongs. It's been a long time, hasn't it?" sighed Ngoc Tuan, a middle-aged painter with about 10 years of experience on the shores of Hoan Kiem Lake.

"Seeing others do it, I think I can do it too. With this attitude, more and more painters come to the lakeside every day. Apart from middle-aged people like Tuan, there are also older people who still have a strong interest in drawing. These people have gray hair and beards and seem to be in their seventies. However, the vast majority are young painters, many of them art students, including women.

At an open studio on the shore of Hoan Kiem Lake, a pencil sketch is on display.

"Whether you are a real painter or not, whether you have had formal training or not, none of that matters in this milieu," he confirmed while sketching a visitor, adding, "If you have talent and can draw well, you are eligible to practice the trade."

Although they sit in the same positions and set up the same "street stand" every day, their daily work stories are different. "Because every day we welcome different visitors with different faces and lines... That's one of the 'poetic' things about the job," Phung Quan, a relatively young painter with a romantic view of "lakeside artists," told The Hanoi Times.

A meeting between one of the artists and his clients - mostly tourists, half of them foreigners - is relatively short, usually from 15 to 20 minutes, at the most half an hour. This is enough time to make a portrait sketch. It would be difficult to expect a highly artistic painting, but the work can certainly serve as a souvenir, reminding you of a fascinating experience of a unique cultural feature in Hanoi.

A pencil portrait can be completed in as little as 15 minutes. Photo: Pham Minh

Bringing joy to visitors

Ngoc Phuong, a traveler from Nam Ha Province, was very excited to receive her pencil portrait. "It is so beautiful and vivid. I almost did not recognize myself because I am even more pretty in the painting," she laughed.

The tourist said her pencil portrait was worth the wait. "You can spend the modeling time enjoying the silence or watching others pass by," she told The Hanoi Times.

In addition to enjoying delicious snacks around Hoan Kiem Lake and enjoying Hanoi's vibrant nightlife, visitors to Hanoi's Old Quarter can also take home valuable emotional souvenirs. No one but the street painters helped visitors preserve the most beautiful moments of their trip to Hanoi Old Quarter.

But behind the tourist's joy are secrets that these street artists rarely reveal.

Life of a lakeside painter

The fact is that the title "lakeside artist" accurately describes the artist's livelihood. Apart from customers who pay the asking price or even leave generous tips for a satisfactory sketch, there are still "models" who haggle over the price. "I charge VND300,000 (US$12), but I also paint for one-third, depending on my mood. Something is better than nothing," said young painter Viet Tuan.

A portrait sketch of a visitor to Hoan Kiem Lake is on display.

But even this is not a "disaster" for the painters, according to Tuan. "There are many cases where the price is agreed before I start painting, but in the end, the customer complains that the painting is ugly or doesn't look like them, so they don't pay," he said. Such a situation makes the poor painter both ashamed and sad, not daring to ask for payment. Not to mention the rain and wind, causing the whole guild to hastily clear out their "street stalls" and run away.

Faced with tricky situations, the "lakeside artists" must-have tricks to save themselves. They try to pick up a few English words and babble to chat with foreign visitors. "Knowing English is always an advantage because it is easy to make a good impression on foreign tourists. When everything becomes fun and pleasant, the tips come very quickly... One of my colleagues even got a Western girlfriend by painting her portrait," said Le Phuong, a painter from Nam Dinh Province who came to Hanoi to make a living.

The hard work of a shoulder pole painter on the shore of Hoan Kiem Lake. Photo: Pham Minh

Meanwhile, some others... just draw without asking. This means that even if a customer doesn't place an order, the artist will still quickly sketch their portrait. "This method is 50-50. The most exciting part is showing the finished work to the visitor. All is well if they like it and pay a small amount of money. But there are also people who receive the painting and only 'pay' with a beautiful smile of gratitude," he continued.

In a place where there are dozens of painters in a few dozen square meters, competition makes conflicts hard to avoid. However, this only happens from time to time, as they often help each other. They understand that the status of "lakeside artists" is far from that of professional painters, who can open exhibitions and have their works displayed in galleries and priced in US dollars. But the spirit of brotherhood is certainly shared among those who breathe soul into the heart of the capital through their portrait sketches.