Zork Personal Community
Sketch Night @ the Society of Illustrators

Been meaning to attend a sketch night at the Society of Illustrators on the Upper East Side ever since I visited the place with my mom and sis last spring. (It's hard to do it when I'm on a job because they begin at 6:30pm; it's hard to get anywhere by 6:30pm when I'm working, let alone a place on the Upper East Side.)
Finally did it last night. It was a "Sherlock Holmes" theme night. The models were in costume (the male model wore tattered suits: I reckon you don't actually need a full suit if you're just posing). I arrived about 6:15pm and a fair number of people had already settled in and secured prime real estate. I was encouraged seeing there were at least TWO other people using their iPad Pros as sketchbooks.
So... I've been doing more drawing since I got my iPad this past autumn, but the last time I sketched a live model was probably back in high school Art Class.
You have to... work FAST.
They started out with a bunch of 2 minute poses and I could barely get anything down.
As the night wore on, I started to get a better system down. Then it became more about focusing on specific aspects.
Here's a progression of my sketches over the course of the evening:
It was interesting and frustrating. The woman was empirically attractive and yet when I tried to render her face onto the page, she would come out... distorted.
I know, I know. It's a skill you build, "practice", etceteras. I just thought I'd be better out of the gate.
I'll probably try a few more sketch nights since I have no life.
(And no, I didn't exchange ONE WORD with anyone: so sue me!)






You shared a space with people. That's more social than I get most days so points for you.
Also I thought you said you were terrible at drawing. You've totally got a handle on this it's just practice you need. So more points.
I'm glad you took some time to write this up. I was super curious about how this went!
It's the process of getting on the page what I see in my head. I mean, that's the struggle I think people have from childhood.
I don't think there is anyone in the world who doesn't struggle with that at least occasionally.
I remember being so frustrated as a kid that my drawings couldn't look the way they did in my mind. (throw my crayons across the room level of frustrated).
I also remember thinking it was dumb that my markers and crayons weren't as nice as the fancy art supplies I would see used by older kids or adults.
I was a weird kid. Priorities.
I like that image of throwing your crayons. It would be hilarious if we did that kind of thing as adults. In particularly imagining Zork doing this at his Sketch Night.
Hahaha no kidding!
Your drawings look really good, actually. Can you do a slower progression so I can see better? Also, save these drawings and keep doing the Sketch Nights. It will be cool to see how your drawing changes.
HAHHA, I can imagine child TLQ throwing crayons across the room in a fit.
I consciously avoided making a slower progression so you can't see them in detail :-) They are what they are, I'm not beating myself up over them, but I thought I'd do better than I did. Again -- it's more about executing on the page what I see in my head.
Initially, I was trying to get "the whole scene", but I realized that I'm not try to become a court sketch artist. I just needed to focus on whatever I wanted to focus on. It's kinda neat because it's not a class and you're not being judged/graded, so you can really do whatever you want.