Warming up for #OneWeek100People with 5 minute sketches!
More warmups for this year’s #OneWeek100People!
The other day I made it to a Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School event.
They say they have over a hundred branches in sixteen countries, so if you’re lucky, there’s one near you.
This often irreverent drawing event is a local favorite. Traditional life-drawing is invaluable to an artist’s training, but these days I find it more fun to sketch a costumed model.
This session was a Lord of the Rings, Galadriel theme, set to the epic music of the films.
To be honest, this was a more chaste session than usual.
Coming from the burlesque community, Dr. Sketchy’s is usually known for racy costumes and poses.
But I think the motherly character of Galadriel, and the sorrowful sounds of Enya don’t set the mood for the usual camp and shenanigans.
These are 5, 10 or 20 minute poses, but I try to treat them all the same.
My strategy is to use spare time in the longer poses to go back and paint the faster sketches – so I doubt I spent much more than 5 minutes on any of these.
In a life-drawing situation – I’m always aiming for less-is-more.
I love the rush of energy – trying to finish these to the best of my ability, in the shortest possible time. It’s 100% absorbing.
Really therapeutic. In the sense that you can’t think of anything besides getting the sketch. 100% of your brain is engaged in painting. All your other worries (and responsibilities) are put on hold.
I like to think #OneWeek100People can help with that.
Having the shared goal to get that many people in a week – it’s just enough pressure to help you get into this zone.
The very thin space between an elegant, instantaneous sketch, and an epic fail :)
My favorite kind of drawing.
Citizen Sketcher 
What kind of paper is this? and what size sheet? beautiful stuff
These are the softcover Stilman and Birn sketchbooks, so it’s just a cellulose paper, light tooth, probably 100lb-ish. (I should say, in order to paint fast enough in a life drawing situation you can’t use a sketchbook – you need to have a dozen wet sketches spread out all around you. I cut the pages out of the book because they were a good size for my kit. I pretty much don’t use sketchbooks anymore because of this issue – once one page is wet – what do you do? Stop for 20 min? – or find a bathroom with a hand-dryer :)
You are s-o-o-oooo inspiring. Really. Thanks for sharing
I love these quick sketches and the vitality of them! So much expressed with just a suggestion of face, hands and drapery.
Thank you! I felt pretty good about that ya :) It was ‘on’ for me that session :)