Monday, February 1, 2010

Now For Something Completely Different - Dr. Sketchy

It was a fun art-filled weekend.  On Saturday I attended the workshop/awards for the Whitewater Arts Alliance WRAA.  The weather cooperated, and the show was judged by a wonderful watercolor artist named Amy Arntson.  Arntson paints large photorealistic paintings of water and waves, and she is a thoughtful jurist.  It was fun to see art friends from around southern Wisconsin, and I was pleased that my watercolor of a Mexican woman qualified for the state show later this year.
               
Then on Sunday I was pleased that an art friend I had seen on Saturday agreed to try a "Dr. Sketchy" field trip to the High Noon Saloon in Madison.  Dr. Sktechy's Anti Art School is an international franchise, life drawing with models dressed (more or less) in saucy costumes, held in bars.  It's informal, and lots of fun.  I had meant to go for months, but either I couldn't find someone to go along, the weather was bad, or I had other plans for the day.  


It helped that I had taken a life drawing class last summer.  I had lots of drawing materials, and I was ready for the short warm up poses, and gradually longer sessions.  It turned out that I liked the results of the short poses best.  The first two here were either one or three minute poses.  The vine charcoal and pastels worked well to capture these quick impressions.  Maybe having drunk about half a Spotted Cow didn't hurt either.


The model, who was advertised as a "fully posable Barbie" didn't resemble any of my collected vinyl goddesses, but she had lots of attitude.  She didn't wear pink, either, but I added pink pastel just because you can't have Barbie without some pink.


This was the result of a twenty minute pose, and I think this was the sketch that won me a box of pastels - yeah!  We had a great time, and the three hours flew by.  I had been a little nervous about heading out to a bar with a bag of art materials.  I thought I might be surrounded by lecherous men (I wasn't) and that I might be the oldest bag there (wrong again).  I wondered how bare the model would be, but she was nothing compared to what I saw later at the Grammys on television.  I enjoyed the intensity of the drawing, the great sound system and music, having a drawing buddy with me, and relaxing a little with refreshments.  

This being retired isn't bad!

5 comments:

BARBARA WEEKS said...

Love it! What fun.

Rayne said...

This sounds like such a fun thing to do! Fantastic sketches, too. Love the flowing lines.

Serena Lewis said...

It sounds like a lot of fun....lovely loose sketches! Congratulations on winning a set of pastels ~

Leslie Hawes said...

Dr. Sketchy is a genius.
And the saucy drawings are wonderful!

Anonymous said...

Oh I'm so jealous! The Mr. Sketchy trip sounds fabulous and your sketches came out great! And you're retired! I can't wait!!!! I'm going to check out Mr. Sketchy and see if they have it near here anywhere!