Armed with my brand new sketch pad and my extremely talented friend Naomi, I braved the world of burlesque dancers and sketching at Dr. Sketchy's.
What is Dr. Sketchy's? Its where a group of artists get together every 3rd Sunday night to sketch burlesque dancers, roller derby girls, etc. who strike various poses for different times (e.g.: 1 minute, 5 minutes, 20 minutes).
Naomi invited me along and I couldn't resist. I've seen her drawings from previous Dr. Sketchy's evenings and they are wonderful and although I was intimated, I thought it would be fun to try.
The group currently meets at the Pink Elephant Bar in downtown Denver and artists sit at little tables (normally reserved for drinkers) with pens, paper, ink, brushes ready to sketch the lovely model for the evening. Drinks are pricey but fun and tasty. The music is funky. The model is clothed (sometimes partly clothed) in a variety of costumes throughout the evening.
Sketching the lovely Honey Touche was a lot of fun and I realized that I wasn't too bad at sketching, provided I stayed away from drawing faces and hands and I stuck to legs, chair legs and the back of Honey.
I also took a bunch of photos of her posing. (I used my flash at one point and got a hairy eyeball look from one of the artists - I later read on the Dr. Sketchy's myspace page that flash photography isn't allowed).
After each timed pose, the artists turn in their favorite sketch and the hostess (with the help of the model or someone else) then picks the best sketch for that pose. To my utter amusement and surprise, Honey picked my sketch from one of the poses and I won a pair of tickets to see the Roller Derby in June. What fun. (I later learned that most of the artists hadn't turned out for Dr. Sketchy's that night so I think they pitied me as a newbie).
This is the picture that got me the prize!
Anyway, I've concluded that this may become a new outlet for me, provided Naomi doesn't mind me tagging along with a real artist!
Naomi (aka Real Artist) produced this picture of Honey which I stole from her blog!
(She has already called me a thief on Facebook so this is double jeopardy)