Dr Sketchy's Brisbane - July 2011

Before long ago I'd never heard of Dr Sketchy's. I only stumbled across it by accident on Facebook, but it sounded like an intriguing idea — On the first Tuesday of every month, artists - professional and amateur - get together and sketch models of different sorts, mostly of the Burlesque variety. Before now I hadn't done any serious life-drawing since I was doing animation at TAFE, that was back in the mid to late 90s, so needless to say my skills in that area were rusty at best.

I won't even bother uploading any of my sketches from the first week I went to Dr Sketchy's, they were really bad! Which is a shame because the model was a nice 50s pinup-style beauty. Unfortunately, I'm  no Gil Elvgren so my sketches didn't do her any justice.

The second time I went was early this month. After my first poor effort I wasn't expecting much, but I surprised myself. I didn't think these were too bad...

(2-5 mins)

(10 mins)

(10 mins)

(15 mins)

These were done with a black pen on paper. Clearly I'm intimidated by realistic faces, particularly women's. I didn't even attempt these. There's a fine technique to drawing a pretty face, and I'm out of practice. If I was drawing grostesque crones I'd have no trouble!