Back in January Alexis and I visited the Dr. Sketchy’s Boston branch who had Persephone’s Playhouse posing for the session.  The theme was rope bondage which was pretty ambitious considering the number of ropes and knots that had to be retied from one pose to the next.  It worked out pretty well and it looked they run a pretty neat branch.

Next Dr. Sketchy’s Baltimore is April 25th with Ivory Twinkler of Gilded Lily Burlesque, btw.  Look at this flyer (photo by Cheryl Fair) and tell me you don’t want to come.

I then grabbed a 3D model of an old truck from Google Warehouse and . . .

I ended up flipping the last drawing horizontally – it didn’t occur to me until the flyer was posted around town that the seven was backwards.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, so I’m going to do several posts in a row for the last 6 months of crap I’ve let build up.  First up, a few sketches from one of MICA’s evening life-drawing sessions which I’ve started attending again.  Initially, Alexis and I started Dr. Sketchy’s Baltimore because we wanted it to exist so we could go to it.  We’d attended a session or two in NYC, got fired up about it, and then proceeded to sit around for a year waiting for someone to start one in Baltimore.  Eventually we gave up and started it ourselves with the thought, “Well, we’ll set up the chairs, collect the money at the door, and then sit down to draw with everyone else.”

Yeah, we had no idea what we were getting into.  Don’t get me wrong, we wouldn’t give up running Dr. Sketchy’s for the world, but of the many neat, interesting things that have come of it, getting a chance to draw wasn’t one of them.  So we hit the local art college MICA’s and the local art co-op Creative Alliance’s life-drawing sessions for that missing bit.

This particular model, in the above sketch, walked in to the session, propped up a mountain of pillows and laid down – blocking 1/2 to 3/4 of the room from being able to see anything but the upper tip of her elbow.  She was the long-pose model, which meant she would be holding that pose for the entire 3 hours.  One of the artists said, “Umm, excuse me, but if you sit like that, most of the room can’t see you.”  She responded, “Tough.  That’s how it works, you’ll just have to live with it.”  The artist started to respond but she closed here eyes, effectively blocking him out.

She’d actually come by Dr. Sketchy’s a few months earlier wanting to model – when we told her we were too busy trying to start the session (basically running around in frantic “pull-our-hair-out” mode) but she should go read the “Interested in being a model?” page and follow the directions, she responded that she already had.  (The page says don’t come to Dr. Sketchy’s and try to talk to us about modeling when the session is about to start.)  She then got mad that we couldn’t give her a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the spot and left.

Sigh.

Well, that’s all the MICA sketches I got.  Tomorrow I’ll put up a couple Dr. Sketchy’s flyer creation sketches.

Oh, I should plug the next Dr. Sketchy’s Baltimore before I go.  Next Dr. Sketchy’s is April 11th with the lovely calendar girls of Team Atomic with all the proceeds going to the Ride for the Feast charity.  Drawing, adult beverages, AND doing good deeds.  Honestly, what more could you want?

That one kind of reminds me of a fellow I knew back in high school and what he might look like in another decade or two.  Maybe.  If he’s eating right or something.  I don’t know.

This was a sign language interpreter at a recent section meeting – it actually looks nothing like her.  Three minutes into the drawing someone as tall as a tree sat in front of me.  I pretty much had to make up (badly) 75% of the drawing.

One of the speakers at said section meeting.  He had a Scottish accent and was a lot more lively than this serene pose indicates.

Last week while dropping off Dr. Sketchy’s Baltimore flyers at the Windup Space, I ended up deciding to stay and see the show that was being set up while I was taping things up on the windows.  Unfortunately, the show was 2 hours away and my phone was dead, so I ended up doodling Russell behind the bar.  The sketch is horrible, but I like the look of it – I might try to do it again tomorrow night while other folks are drawing Paco up on stage.

Lastly, an unfinished doodle I did after the Russell doodle – it was cut off by the start of the show.

By the way, if you want to get some cheap life-drawing in, and you’re around Baltimore, the next Dr. Sketchy’s is tomorrow night, at the Windup Space with Paco Fish.  Doors at 6, start at 7!  Whatever you got going on, this is better.  Probably.  I mean, if it’s your birthday and everyone’s giving you presents, well, fine.  Otherwise, this is neater.

(photo of Paco Fish courtesy of Twilight Images by Melody Smith, www.twilightimages.net)

Page 4 is obviously in progress.  Page 3 needs a tie-piece added to the last panel and some wordage to the wine bottle in the first panel.

Next up, some sketches from a Creative Alliance’s life drawing session.  They’re every Saturday at 10, $10 if you’re not a menu, $3 if you are.

As usual, first drawing or two suck.  (Got there at the start of the ten minute poses, 5 minutes into the first pose – it ended before I got too far.)

Next couple were a little better.

And after that, I was tired/bored, so the last one was crap.

Here’s a tipsy sketch done of a friend while leisurely (at least at first) a couple beers at the Blarneystone.

BTW, he doesn’t look this rough – I purposefully went that direction since I knew a more nuanced sketch rarely works well when Mr. Jager is looking over your shoulder.  Oh, and the “light” spots are do to the scanner not getting along with the faint crumpling the paper got later on in the evening.  I’ve decided they look like hazy cigarette smoke, so whatever.  (What?  You can’t smoke in bars in Baltimore anymore?  Sorry, I can’t hear you…)

Last up, two doodles from a meeting at work.  The first was the usual random junk that gets scribbled during these affairs; the second is an altogether matter.  It started as a simple off-hand sketch of a comic-stylized side-view of an eye – and then suddenly the meeting just went on FOREVER.  As the meeting dragged on, I absent-mindedly added a detail here, a detail there, and it eventually grew to the point where I ran out of page.  I’ll probably put it in Painter sometime this week and see if I can add the bits I wanted to add but couldn’t, since, well, you know, the paper ran out.

By the way, the next Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School Baltimore life-drawing session is next Monday, September 27, 2010 at the Windup Space.

Best damn life-drawing you’ll find in town.  If I wasn’t helping run it, I’d be there drawing.  BTW, check out this LAZERBITCH video if you want a feel for what they’re like.  (The Windup Space is in there at the end too.)