Dr Sketchy - Victoriana at the Greystones

I had real fun on Tuesday evening. I had to rush home from a library event and dash out again with barely time to draw breath, but it was worth it.

It was my 2nd time at a Dr Sketchy event. Last time was really interesting, so I was keen to give it another go. It has relocated since then: they've got themselves a much bigger space, which is miles better than before, with a proper stage for the models, so everyone could see better.

The theme was Victoriana and three models dressed up in various get-ups in keeping with the era, posing for us to draw them. They were all short, sharp poses - anything from 5 minutes to 15 minutes. 

I mainly used the Inktense watercolour pencils I've got so keen on lately, as there was so much colour both in the outfits and in the lighting, it seemed a shame not too (although it was a bit of challenge for the really quick poses!). The red-headed Ieva Dubova was a real gift and so beautiful (far more so than my drawings suggest):

As you can see, some of the gear was truly surreal and I especially liked the mad basque / beard combo worn by Fanny Divine:

Like before, we had a suitably themed soundtrack playing all the while: mostly music-hall numbers (I was surprised how often I knew the words: 'Boiled beef and carrots, boiled beef and carrots...').

I noticed with relief that I wasn't the only one, as one or two people couldn't resist singing along here and there.

The organisers did the usual competitions and several of our SketchCrawl team won something. I won a very nice design book for the drawing of Foxie La Roque at the very top. One of the competition challenges was to do a 10 minute drawing with your left hand - very tricky! This was my effort:

If you fancy giving it a go, the next event in Sheffield is in April, but they also do Dr Sketchy sessions in Nottingham and London, as well as in other countries I believe.