sketchy sunday

On the morning of May 10th, also known as Mother's Day, I was on the phone with my mom:

Mom: So, what are you doing today?
Miss Sequential: Oh, there's this drawing class I might go to... It's at a bar, in Allston. It's a life drawing class with burlesque dancer models, and you draw and drink and they take off some clothes. But I dunno.
Mom: I think you have to go and report back!

I couldn't very well ignore my Mom's wishes on Mother's Day, so I made my way over to Great Scott in Allston for the monthly installment of Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School. That link is for the original New York event, but the concept is the same: those eager to do some life drawing show up at a local bar, sketchbooks in tow, and draw models (most of whom are dancers in the burlesque scene) for three hours. Catcalling is encouraged. Sometimes there are contests, like "draw this pose, and incorporate an alien." I'd go so far as to say it's the most fun drawing class I've ever been to.



The week I went to class there were only about fifteen people there, but I'm told that it gets pretty crowded when it's not a holiday weekend. Everyone sits around the stage at the back of the bar, sipping drinks, sketching, and chatting with the models. We were lucky to have two excellent models, Voluptuous Rain (who had never modeled before and who asked us to check the score of the Sox game on the bar tv) and Max (who made a bright red terry-cloth thong to wear at his Dr. Sketchy's debut). P.S. Nobody got totally naked.



I'm definitely going back next time, which happens to be this Sunday. I love drawing figures without the pressure of teachers telling me to watch your perspective or think about proportion, or without having to hide my sketchbook from my subjects on the T. Also, more drawing = better comics. My goal for this summer is to get my drawing back in shape. Like bikini season, only less sunburned, and hopefully even more entertaining.



Sunday June 10, 2007 2:30pm
Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School Cabaret Life Drawing Class
Great Scott
1222 Commonwealth Ave (corner of Harvard and Commonwealth) Allston
$7 2:30pm 18+ (bring your ID, this is a bar)

More info on Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr_Sketchy's_Anti-Art_School
Dr. Sketchy's Boston, brought to you by Truth Serum: http://www.truthserum.org/
Dr. Sketchy's Boston myspace: http://www.myspace.com/drsketchysboston

Bor-inggg

yikes, where has the time gone?! two months have passed, an old entry has gone missing (hm!), and there hasn't been anything new in forever. sorry, if anyone is reading this.

oh, but i did graduate from my program at school, so maybe that's a good excuse. i've been drawing, it's just been other things.

never fear, updates are on the way. i'm thinking about posting some single-panel drawings from my recent sketchbook soon. i'd like to get drawing some actual comics with panels, maybe later once the schoollessness has worn off a bit: i still feel the need to catch up on missed television.

happy halloween!

a new comic, drawn today in fact! enjoy.

i love my television

on sundays i mostly do homework in preparation for class on monday nights. this usually involves charging up my laptop, relocating to the living room, and doing layouts while watching movies on cable.

when i was younger, my parents used to buy tv guide and i, constantly hungry for reading material (seriously, i would read ANYTHING), would read it cover to cover. i would read it so thoroughly that it got to the point that i knew detailed, week-to-week plot summaries of shows i have never watched before in my life. kind of disturbing.

this is a highlight of my senior year of college:



translations:
haiku #1: this is about me, the human tv guide
haiku #2: i think this is a reference to saturday nights
haiku #3: lack of tv sustenance brings about memories of the 80s MTV game show "remote control" starring ken ober and colin quinn (and occasionally adam sandler). one of my most favorite shows ever. seriously, i would have ruled that show. it helped that my dad had the computer game version and i would play it constantly on our apple 2e. was it just me, or were there an unproportional number of questions about erik estrada?
haiku #4: you like the naked chef jamie oliver? me too.
haiku #5: sad but true, even today

friday the thirteenth +1

i wanted to post this comic, which is about a truly unfortunate series of events during a morning commute, on friday the 13th, but that didn't happen. here it is anyway:





this is 100% percent true and all happened one morning during the summer between junior and senior year of college. i was living in a sublet basement apartment in allston and commuting to my publishing internship every morning. i'm not sure why i didn't throw in the towel and go back home after all these gross events, i guess i was afraid i'd see the giant cockroach again.

p.s. despite the fact that my parents thought that was the grossest apartment i ever lived in, that was the one and only time i ever saw a cockroach, even if it was the biggest cockroach in the world.

obligatory sailor drawings

being a port city, boston gets a ton of random military ships coming through. this activity reaches a ridiculous height in july (i think), when tons of sailors from all over the world step onto our shore wearing slightly-belled white pants for fleet week.

coincidentally, sailors are some of my favorite stock male characters to draw (i also like drawing hartford whalers fan, guy in football uniform, sullen mod, and matinee idol with hilarious mustache), and the fleet week episode of sex and the city is the one i love most, and i once owned a vintage pair of navy issue wool sailor pants in high school. so when they're crawling all over town doing silly things while wearing those silly uniforms, it's almost too much inspiration.

this comic (2 pages) is from the citronella one-shot comic book.





comments:

• every sailor there is inspired by actual events
• sailors look really funny talking on payphones
  
• sailors were, in fact, a staple of most crowd scene illustrations at the time
• i do, in fact, cross my legs on the T
• i love every drawing of pirates i have ever made
  

2 days, 2 comics

since it's the weekend, here are two comics from the archives:



i'm not sure what i drew this for, but the technique (nib pen + ink) and subject matter (er, puns about love) suggest it was sometime during high school, at which time my friends and i maintained a list of ridiculous pickup lines we'd heard/knew of. also of note:

1. potato necklace (top left) is a reference to an actual potato necklace that was sent to me by a girl named jackie who wrote a zine called cheshire.
2. boy in polo shirt (also top left) is most definitely a boy named scott who i knew from ska shows. i don't remember being interested in him romantically, but he was fun to draw.
3. gay rights t-shirt (middle left) is pretty random + awesome.
4. dude in middle right panel looks like eric from "head of the class"
5. naked tuna t-shirt (middle right) is a reference to my own comics in /nothing/ zine. more on that when i post some classic naked tuna.

this next one is from college, and originally appeared in the citronella one-shot comic:



of note:

1. this really happened, on bay state road on the BU campus.
   
2. star market grocery bag!