Dr Sketchy

Oh what a fun birthday weekend! I treated myself to an afternoon at Dr Sketchy's (something I've been missing due to working on Sundays and having no spare funds). I was feeling slow again, as a result of not getting to do this regularly enough.

I wish, especially, that I'd had more time for shading with the cute sailor outfit.

I tried the starting-with-white technique for the princess get-up, and liked the results.

I wasn't feeling as invigorated this Sunday as usual, possibly because our regular coordinator wasn't able to attend. I mixed up my watercolors with my Pentel brush pen this time, which was fun. And dug out the colored pencils at the end.

I made an attempt to break out of my "comfort zone" at the most recent Dr Sketchy's. I bought my watercolors. I figured they'd lend themselves well to colorful costumes.

I warmed up with my conte crayons as usual, and then made the switch for the longer poses.

The lighting at Dr Sketchy's is, well, often sketchy, but I found from my angle she was very well lit. I kept wanting to bring my colored pencils out knowing I could better capture the beautiful shading. I resisted the urge, reminding myself I wasn't trying to create a masterpiece, and it wouldn't be the last time ever I had a well lit model. So I kept up the watercolors. I enjoyed some of the effects I was getting with them, and plan to have at them again, and try to improve.

I also worked some more, again, at shading in the background to set off the edge of the figure.

I was having one of those days where I wasn't feeling up to snuff with my short pose sketches. There's a local group of figure artists who do a short pose session down the street from me that I'm hoping to get involved with soon, though. It's a great group of people, and though I'm not as into doing the short poses, it's likely to be pretty helpful. I want to try different ways of capturing shape and shadow.

The model was great, and we all had a good time. I had the most fun going with the pink theme of her last costume. That wig looked like it was made of cotton candy.

Another fun afternoon of sketching. I couldn't figure out why she looked so familiar until Mike mentioned something that made me realize I'd met her at a party or two of a mutual friend. Is this where I make a joke about not recognizing someone with more/less clothes on?

She held some difficult poses for more than just the 1 minute sketches.

Often times when I try to shade in a model's eyes they end up looking weird in some way. So I left out her pupils, and they still look weird but in a good way.
Kaz also managed to pose herself in a way that made her really well lit most of the time. It was great, since often the lighting on that stage is just awkward.