Steam Punk: Dr Sketchy Strikes Again!

I thought you might like to see the slightly crazy paintings I did at Dr Sketchy the other day.

Dr Sketchy is a sort of wacky spin-off from life drawing. Instead of naked people, it is all about dressing up. Each event has a theme. I have been to loads, including a Moulin-Rouge one, Fairytales, a circus theme, roller-blading, even char-ladies and once, for Halloween, a zombie event!

It's always good fun, but it's also quite a challenge. This time it was Steam Punk. There were two models to draw. Sometimes you have five or six on stage at the same time, so it can be even more tricky. I wimped out when they were both on stage together and concentrated on one model per pose.

There is so much to draw and only quite short periods of time to work in. Actually, this latest event was slightly different to usual, in that they didn't do any really short poses; the shortest we had was 15 minutes, but the longest was still only 25 minutes, so no time to rest on your laurels.

These days I concentrate on using watercolours, adding in a bit of detail and definition with my Inktense watercolour pencils, where needed. I find painting is the best way to get colour in when time is short. It's also the easiest way to get across the flavour of the occasion, especially when there is interesting lighting.

I took an A3 sketchbook, so I could really go for it. It was a bit chaotic, trying to juggle the big book, paints, water, pencil case etc on a little pub table. Each painting was still really wet when we started the next pose, so I had to tear them from my book and lay them out on the floor. It was also fairly frantic, getting the watercolour mixed and down in time, while still finding time to change water and sharpen pencils, but all that is definitely part of the fun for me.

Thanks to Stan for the photo at the top!