Demoncats & Dr. Sketchy

A fellow Sketchcrawler let me know that Dr. Sketchy's had started up in DC earlier this year. Of course I only found out about this in July when I was out of town.
So I made it to my first session this week at The Soundry in VA and they had the Demoncats from the DC Rollergirls posing for us. And they put on some really good at poses, better than models from some figure studies classes I've had & taught.

I can't wait to see the girls in the rink!

Sâuçálito Food Truck

Since drawing the Fojol Brothers foodtruck I've become a little obsessed with the concept of high-end food trucks in DC. I thought there were just a few of them, but it turns out there are dozens. Indian food, BBQ, Cupcakes, Crepes, Tacos, Bahn Mi, Diner food, Frozen yogurt, a Lobster shack on wheels- there are pretty much options for everyone. Plus most of these trucks have vegetarian and vegan options, which is awesome. So on my to-do list now is the task of sketching the food trucks of DC, and almost as important is to sample their menus.

So I tracked down (one of) the Sâuçá food truck(s) via twitter and managed to get a sketch, but I got there late and the truck was already sold out of its food. I'll find Sâuçálito again though, they have more than a few dishes I want to get my hands on...

Jamestown Giveaway

While I was in Fredonia for NYSSSA this July (missing the symposium) I made my way down to Jamestown, NY to do a little sketching. There are a lot of interesting buildings and alleys there and last year I had thought it would be a great place to do one of my "giveaway" projects, but time had gotten away from me and it never happened. This time I made sure to make a couple of detours to draw & place a few sketches around the city. I decided to frame 6 sketches (thanks IKEA for the cheap frames!) and place them near the sites I drew them by instead of placing them on car windshields like I usually do. I thought it would be interesting to hang them up on the street as I might hang them on a gallery wall. I forgot to give them all labels, but all of the frames are easily removable to anyone who might want to take one home. I don't really know if they'll all fall to the ground, get taken home, or still be there this time next year- I just dig that they are part of the landscape for a little while.

Sketchcrawl at Genesee Valley Park

I've been home in Rochester for a bit this summer, and consider myself lucky that Genine & Rachael have had 2 Rochester Sketchcrawl events within less than 2 weeks of each other. The latest meet up was at the Genesee Valley Park. My first couple of sketches were quite the massive failures-I hada hard time wrapping my head around those kayaks. I think Genine faired much better with them. But I found a couple of sketches in me after those... we'll call them... warm-ups...

Sketching the State of the City

Friday (Aug 6) was the 2010 State of the City show at the ROCO, which featured a lot of nice work including Amy Casey, Trevor Flynn and Spectres of Liberty. But by far the most interesting part of the show was the participation of the Rochester Sketchcrawlers. The idea was for visitors to join in with the Sketchcrawlers and then share their drawings on a designated ROCO wall, and there was a nice collection of drawings up at the end of the night. I pinned two sketches on their wall, but kept the rest in my sketchbook.

The sketches i kept were mostly blind-contour sketches of people. I have twice as many attempted drawings in my moleskine as I have finished sketches though, from not being able to handle people moving while I draw.

(Amy Casey and her friend #3 below were not blind contour)

(But this gentleman was)

D16

I spent July in Fredonia, teaching at NYSSSA Visual Arts again. Every year we have an Art Exchange with the faulty and staff of the program, and this year I was one of the delinquent ones who wasn't able to finish his set of work for everyone. Not for lack of trying mind you! I just didn't like the picture I had made, and it wasn't working out as a multiple like I wanted it to...

More on that sketch later perhaps...

So instead I finished a sketch from the Chautauqua County Fair's Demolition Derby! We got there a little late and missed the "Gladiators" round, but what we did see were really fun. D16 was the winner of the last round we watched, and came off relatively unscathed. I may have to finish one of the other drawings of one of the cars that came off a little worse.

So now I just have to do finish 19 prints of this sketch and mail them out... I can totally do that between now and next July, right?