Fan Girl

Drawing an oscillating fan, no matter how old-fashioned, turns out to be a difficult lesson in geometry.
Demonstrated in this sketch is the age-old and largely ineffectual trick of putting a bowl of ice in front of a fan to simulate air conditioning. I did one better and snagged the air conditioner from the room of my absent roommate (don't worry, I'll put it back in time for his return.)
A few more ideas are expressed here- that I can't believe the month is over, for one. I hope that having completed a month of sketches means that I can stay on track for the whole year.
Also (as you can see on the calendar) tonight I finally went to see my friend Rob's band INFRASTRUCTURE- This was the first night when they were playing and I wasn't working, plus it was a free show! They rockabilly-ed the House of Blues and I got to be a fangirl! Today has been both hot and cool.

That's the Way Boys Are

This sketch is for my sister, who I have re-imagined as a scorned young woman out of a Lesley Gore song, because her boyfriend isn't meeting par at the moment.

'Ris: You know a lot of Lesley Gore songs- she sang "It's My Party (And I'll Cry if I Want To)" and "You Don't Own Me" (which you might be interested to hear in Italian too.) All of her songs are really catchy, if very predictable in subject matter and very early '60s in style. However if you listen to her lyrics you'll notice that very little about relationships has changed in 50 years! You need to hear"That's the Way Boys Are," I think it will make you feel better. Also check out "Maybe I Know" (you're b.f. isn't a cheater, but the song is my favorite) and, just for fun (or irony) "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows." (P.S. You can click on the picture to enlarge it)

There's no way I could do my pretty sister justice in this sketch, so please forgive me. Neither does this depict the actual crimes of which her boyfriend stands accused (or how HE looks,) however it is a representation of an eternal truth- boys can be scum (Sorry guys! Prove me wrong!) Notice the chaste blonde very clearly wears his pin. Also, the temptress looks vaguely like Lesley Gore!

***Love you, stinky Ris :P ***

Welcome

Hello and welcome to She's So Sketchy! If you are just discovering this blog because I just announced that it exists, then thanks for coming! I'd love it if you would follow it, comment, make suggestions as to what I should draw... anything to keep the project motivated for a full year!

Yes, the plan is that I draw something every day for a year post it to this blogspot, and write about it. Sometimes the sketch will be motivated by the desire to write, sometimes the opposite. Rules are there ain't rules (yet!) I started on June 3rd, 2010, the day after I left a truly horrible job. The June 3rd entry explains my inspirations.

As for my artistic credentials- I went to a high school with an amazing visual arts program...and took Chorus instead. Most of the sketching I've done has been in the course of designing costumes for theatre, or for the sake of stress relief. I hope this experience makes me a more confident and creative artist, even if I never graduate beyond the medium of pencil.

Oh- and so far the local mascot is The Asshole Zebra. I love him in a clearly unreciprocated way.

Today's sketch is an interesting doorway I saw in Cambridge. It's drawn mostly from memory, which explains the lack of any significant shading. I thought it would be a nice image for a day when I hope to receive visitors.

Now that you know I'm here, please come back, follow along via RSS feed, and make suggestions! If you still need convincing: I'm more fleshed out than XKCD, more open than PostSecret, and more evil than Sinfest... not to mention more frequent! See you tomorrow!

Enjoy Your Cake

For some ideas there are no words, so today's is not a very long post. Just thought I'd mention that a lot of people I know are getting married in the coming year. Sketch sums up the way I sometimes feel about that.

I Love the Nightlife

The title is a little funny considering I rarely have a free weekend night. Instead, I work at the American Repertory Theatre's run of The Donkey Show, which is A Midsummer Night's Dream without Shakespeare, set in a club (with a bar) to disco music. If you have not seen it then you MUST, and I will find you tickets.

This is an iconic image from the show- Titania, Queen of the Fairies, is held aloft while singing Alicia Bridges' "I Love the Nightlife" . And yes, the masses of muscle and lack of clothing are accurate to the proceedings. What you can't see is the glitter.

There is so much glitter.

Imaginary Lighthouses

When I was in Kentucky, I met a pastor who had never visited the ocean- But was obsessed with lighthouses. His office was full of lighthouse images, from paintings to statuettes to embroidered pillows. I commented to him that most of his lighthouses were imaginary. You see, lighthouses exist to serve a very specific purpose, and there are a finite number of them in the world, and each one is purposefully different. In most countries, they are controlled either by historical preservations or by the coast guard. Each one is registered. Therefore, if you draw an off-the-cuff image of a lighthouse, it is either a very specific lighthouse, or it is imaginary. If you improvise a realistic house in needlepoint, there may very well be a house in the world that looks very much the same (given the sheer number of houses on earth.) If it does not exist, you can build it. The same is not true of lighthouses; you cannot simply build them. Castles are an even better example. Wouldn't you readily admit that a castle you would draw would be imaginary? Real castles are far between and easily numbered. I think I forgot to mention castles to the pastor, who thought I was speaking in tongues. The other people I was with when I met him were downright embarrassed for me. But now that I've written it here, it makes sense, doesn't it?

The lighthouse I have drawn is like a combination of Maine's Portland Head lighthouse and Bodie Island lighthouse in North Carolina, but it is unabashedly imaginary.

Old Fashioned / New Media

I am absolutely confounded by Twitter. @ ??? # ??? wtf ???

I'm a fan of YouTube from way back, and was among the earliest subscribers to lonelygirl15 (before it jumped the virtual shark,) fascinated by the potential for new media in entertainment.

However the sound of my own Tweets make me cringe. I feel like the lisping suspender-sporting kid in full headgear shouting "Hey guys! Wait for me!" If anybody cares to give me a Twitter tutorial, you can find me @surrendertojoy . Tweety name is a nice sentiment but moreover a reference to the song 40 Grand in the Hole by Mike Doughty. DO click the link, because that's a live version of the song that starts with some terrific banter that explains why Mike Doughty is my favorite musician.

This sketch, by the way, breaks one of the cardinal rules of sketching (and of all things) : K.I.S.S. In trying to present a lot of old fashioned things as a foil to the Twittering laptop, the sketch became way too complicated, and paradoxically a lot less detailed and specific than I prefer. I might even call it unfinished. My inability to Tweet is clearly infecting my sketch!

All This Coil

I have been so nervous over the past few days! I've got a lot to be anxious about (underemployment, existential career crisis, and a running injury that's acting up) but none of it is new. Still I have a sense of impending doom, and I feel myself bracing for the worst. What's this mysterious and growing shadow over my head? What's that whistling getting louder and higher?
WHY AM I IN THIS HANDBASKET AND WHERE AM I GOING?
It's definitely a night for employing the Three B's: Beer, Book, and Bubblebath.

The Fuzz

Yesterday I had two strange experiences involving police officers.
The first was in a line at a store- Two cops were in line in a non-commital way; they wandered off to pick things up and backed up to consider things. I stepped in front of one of them and then apologized, as one does when one has mistaken the nature of the line. One officer protested and actually grabbed me by both shoulders and pulled me into line in front of him. It stunned me for a minute, even though it seemed like a nice gesture. Forcibly moving strangers is not okay. Forcibly moving small women is fairly easy, and therefore especially not okay. Did he assume it would be fine because he's a cop? You'd think he would know better.
The second encounter inspired the image: later that same night there was an angry drunk outside the train station. I was reading on a park bench and he had taken the adjoining bench when three cops came to confront him. One asked me if he had been yelling obscenities and I admitted he had been. A second starting asking the drunk basic I.D. questions, and then told him they would help him to a place to sleep for the night. The drunk hesitated, and the third officer suddenly burst out yelling, telling the drunk to get on the train and get out of town. I had never thought about that before: that a cop's obligation is not to the people they encounter but to the neighborhood they patrol. That thought made me uneasy, and so did the yelling. Cop #3 shouted the drunk away into the station's door and, as a parting shot cried "and take a F*CKING SHOWER!"
Even as a law-abiding citizen, none of my experiences with police have been positive, so I'll just add these to the list. I find cops to have questionable judgment. Perhaps that's why they're called "The Fuzz."

Treehouse

I drew this in an iHop at 3:30am today. At that hour that iHop (instead of being full of degenerates like myself) hosted a lot of people having heavy conversations. Recent college grads were talking about the necessity of working long hours and living in out-of-the-way places in order to stay afloat. A table of gay guys talked about growing up in foster care, and what it took to make a family, and whether or not they ever wanted to get married. A couple talked about dealing with aging parents.
I felt guilty not for overhearing them, but for not having committed myself to any of these concerns in my own life. The maturity of the grads made me especially anxious; since I'm not plodding away at an accounting job I will never achieve anything.
I thought "Is it too late to live in a treehouse?" I always kinds of wanted to live in a treehouse. Not a crappy treehouse (pictured.) That's a 3:30am treehouse. I'd want a 1:00pm treehouse, at minimum.

Father's Day

Tomorrow I'll be working on a ladder again, and that, combined with the current holiday, got me thinking about something perhaps better explained by the sketch. Manual labor is often my vocation; I do not know if I would consider it an avocation. As of now, I take any available tech gig because I have no financial safety net. I won't pretend there are not aspects of it I like very much, but I wonder... If my upbringing had been different, would I feel compelled to do what so many think is a man's work? On the other hand, if I have a true passion for it that could have been supported early, how much more would I know now? How much more confident would I be?
Just a thought. Happy Father's Day, everyone.

I'm With the Band

Today I went to see Jim Henson's Fantastic World, a traveling exhibit about the evolution of Henson's characters and career. To see the genius of a lifetime summarized in one room was both inspiring and daunting. After Henson, how much imagination could possibly be left in the world? How could I go home and draw anything after seeing what he had accomplished? Then again...how could I not?
The kingdoms of cartoon creatures seemed totally depleted by the Muppets today, so as I headed for work in Harvard Sq I set myself the task of doing a very quick (ink!) sketch of a band that was playing outside (or rather, of the instruments that were being played.) I gave myself only two minutes to draw what I saw, however I was interrupted at 35 seconds by a photographer who wanted to take pictures of me drawing the band! Permission was granted, and it was all very meta-artistic. I think Jim Henson would have approved.

Very Good Morning

I feel a little more relaxed just looking at this sketch. I gave myself this morning to do some reading in a comfortable chair, and giving in to a pleasant mood made me want to draw, which means to me that this pet project is in the right place. Maybe it's just the sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows talking, but I'm really pleased with how this sketch turned out.
I feel enough at ease to confess to you that I really like feet. Not to the point of a fetish, but just think about it- Feet are wonderfully complicated in addition to being dead useful and, if kept neat, they can be aesthetically pleasing. On a good day I like MY feet, if that's not too vain to mention.
I also really like coffee, but that's no great revelation. Still, who'd have thought the combination of feet and coffee could be so soothing?

The Amazing Zoo / The A$sh*le Zebra

Today I took my roommate to the Franklin Park Zoo.
He's a big fan of zoos in general, and we had planned many (failed!) trips in the past. For my part, despite having lived in this area all of my life, I had never been to Franklin Park or its zoo. As I understand Franklin Park is Savannah & Serengeti, while Stone Zoo is more woodsy, i.e. there are no bears in Franklin Park, but there are giraffes! (I love giraffes.) Fun surprises included a wandering pair of peacocks and my new favorite bird, the African Pygmy Falcon, which I think is adorable but would probably just eat me.
As I was oggling giraffes, my roommate mentioned that the zebra was anti-social. I thought he was criticizing it for being blase about visitors, but he pointed to the informational sign which said that, in fact, Grevy's zebra (Equus grevyi) is an anti-social animal who will sooner protect its watering hole than its family. It's Burchell's zebra (Equus burchellii, also in attendance at Franklin Park) which are the pleasant pack animals we readily imagine.
After that, I couldn't get the image of the asshole zebra out of my head, so I had to immortalize him in pencil.
Go ahead. Make his day.

Please Add Paper

Copy machines are a fact of life, people (at least until we all have the iPad.) Please, please learn to use them. Or, if you find yourself in the least bit of doubt about your abilities, spend the extra 3 cents a pop and let me make your copies for you. Don't make me run your self service machine for you, it is literally unacceptable.
I got a fancy degree from a fancy university. Now I make your crappy copies because you go to a fancier university. Take pity on me, and save being poorly remembered in a sketch.

Tonight a Balloon Saved My Life

My thoughts do tend towards "everything happens for a reason." I'm not so Pollyana-ish about it; I have a macabre belief that it's a matter of moments. Doubling back for your forgotten wallet keeps you from getting hit by a car. Maybe I just feel this way because I ride a bicycle.

Which leads me to tonight's topic.

Today I started riding a drop handled racing bike for the first time. Since it's not my usual bike, it doesn't have the necessary flashing lights on it (white on the front, red in the back.) Riding an unfamiliar machine, I was nervous about biking after dark without giving warning to all the surrounding cars. At my urging, my roommate very kindly came by the store where I work and brought me a blinking red light.

When I left the store, a friend of mine from the adjoining ice cream joint gave me a white balloon. As he tied it to my handlebars I couldn't help thinking that it was an interesting replacement for my front light. I then biked for 10 minutes to a friend's house to watch the Celtics (lose the) game. Who knows what wonders that white balloon did for my safety? If it made even one driver double-take, then I was that much safer.

When I got to my friend's building, I untied the balloon with the intention of bringing it inside as a sort of gift. I still don't know how it happened, but string snapped above my grip and the balloon escaped up into the night. I was able to watch it for a full five minutes before I couldn't distinguish it from the stars. The experience was surprisingly lovely and reassuring.

Rose Is Rose

What is the obligation of a sketch to an object? Does that differ from its obligation to a photograph? I'm afraid it does. I reason that a sketch of something in real time can be an evocation of that thing; a suggestion. How can a sketch artist be expected to capture the shadows in a changing sky? A photograph has pinned down those dark spots for us, an even without color we might be expected to copy faithfully in shades of gray. I stopped drawing when it was convenient for me; I stopped drawing when I ran out of patience; I stopped drawing when I thought I saw a rose. There is some art in deciding; there is some art in the choices, but this image-of-an-image-of-a-rose will sooner gather dew than be art.

Call Me Daddy

This sketch in honor of “Little Orphan Annie,” the comic strip chronicling that red-headed ragamuffin created by the cartoonist Harold Gray in 1924. "Annie" ends syndication today, and the last strip is a strange cliffhanger. It seems to me Annie has become a female version of TinTin, getting kidnapped for each time he gets hit over the head. My sketch is a copy of a frame in one of the earliest strips. It's well worth a look, and of course you can critique my attempt at the iconic pair. Little errors in angle and size add up to change the way the characters look. I spent quite a while on Annie's face before pronouncing it "cute enough." Amazing how one stray pencil mark in a cartoon evokes totally different stereotypes of ethnicity or personality...Suddenly Annie looks mean, or flirtatious, or Asian, or (dare I write) mentally deficient.
Interesting to note: Conservative cartoonist Harold Gray used his characters in thinly-veiled attacks on FDR, big government and labor unions. Annie was never a charity case.

Exerrent Kung Fu

After a long day of lifting I unwound with friends and saw The Karate Kid. It was very well done, with nice parallels to the original. Also, Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan give great performances. I forgot it was a children's movie and, from the number of adult voices cheering at the ending, I'd say so did everyone else in the theater. The great thing about going to a movie with smart friends was deconstructing it afterwards. Topics included the fact that it is an advertisment for visiting the new, world-friendly China, and the fact that the idea of a white child beating out natives at a national sport would have been unpaletable, but Jaden Smith kicking ass is much more P.C. (and, y'know...adorable.)

Turning In Early

I'm heading off to Nod earlier than usual, because tomorrow I'm moving the costume stock of an opera company to new storage facillity. That will involve an early wakeup, some biking, and and a lot of heavy lifting. You'll hear more about the company sometime later, I'm sure- My work with them often involves sketching! For now, though, I bid you goodnight.
(P.S.- Actually bed not pictured.)

If the Rain Comes

Is every June going to be like this from now on?

Sketch to Self

I'm not a big fan of ice cream. I recognize and am resigned to the fact that it tasted soooo much better when I was a kid, that my local mom&pop New England ice creamery has no contemporary equal, and that my tolerance for long lines in summer decreases with each passing year. Know all this, I can usually pass up ice cream for a healthier option.
I write "usually" because I have had brownie batter ice cream three times this week. I justified it because it was almost FREE, because I felt I needed sugar to get through my shifts at work, and because it satisfied chocolate cravings.
So again I write:
SKETCH TO SELF:
Just because ice cream is surprisingly alluring, available, and discounted DOES NOT mean that you should eat it frequently.
Love and Kisses,
The Management

P.S. Please note the total failure to draw a circle. I take some small pride in the shape's wobbliness because although we copy like cats here at She's So Sketchy, we never trace.
For those Eddie Izzard fans among my readers, those are the rules... which we just made up...

Nothing New...

...under the sun.
When I thought of that familiar phrase, this is what I pictured.
On that subject, though, I should tell you that mine is not the first sketch-a-day blog (I'd figured as much.) Notable examples include this mechanically-centric set of sketches, and the SketchingEverday domain name belongs to this talented artist. And, of course, there's already severaly highly populated Flickr groups .
I have made peace with the fact that this is not an original idea, and that (compared to the work of others) my sketches may be, well...garbage! But I've spent so much time thinking about the things that I fear can not do, especially as an artist, that since this is something I clearly CAN commit to, then I absolutely must. I will be be deeply disappointed if sheer repetition doesn't make me a better sketch artist at the very least, but I have to face that possibility too. Even if I end up where I started, I hope I sometimes will have wandered to a higher place.

UPDATE: Insomnia led me to see this excellent quote flashed briefly across the local access channel at 3am: "If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do."

Samuel Butler

Good Housekeeping

Maybe I'm setting feminism back 60 years, but I'm VERY pleased to be home getting my laundry done. I cleaned my apartment like I was out for revenge- Take THAT all of you terrible bosses who have been wasting my time!
Perhaps I should be pleased the place is so messy; it feels that much more cathartic to clean it. I can't take all the credit for the clutter, no- I live with two guys who have been more than happy to do the hard work of leaving things around. And since returning to old fashioned stereotypes is the theme of the day, I will say that when I do not get a chance to scrub things, nobody does. I do believe there's a scientific basis to this disparity in seeing dirt (one that doesn't involve my womb jumping up and strangling my brain.) To be fair, every once and a while I turn around, and they've gone and washed something I've been dreading (silverware!) One's also really wonderful about taking out the trash.
When all is disinfected and done, I like the fact that I can sometimes be slovenly in my apartment now, and that the guys feel free to be so. It means we trust one another, that we're comfortable, and that we're busy- too busy to put one thing away before we take out another.

Beat L.A.

I dragged myself from closing the store to a friend's house to watch the basketball game and I was SO GLAD I DID. I haven't been a faithful Boston sports fan for several years now, and I've never followed basketball. I was surprised how comfortable I felt critiquing the game after only a few minutes, as opposed to baseball (which I've watched a lot more but without opening my mouth for fear of revealing myself to be nearly clueless compared to other locals.) So basketball can be accessible and exciting. Who knew? I'm sure it helps a little that it's The Finals. And, y'know...that we WON tonight.
This is my first attempt at copying a character for blogospheric purposes- This is the Boston Celtic's mascot Lucky the Leprechaun. He doesn't look especially athletic to me, with the pipe and cane and all. Then again, none of our players look particularly Celtic!

Chimeras

In Greek mythology, the Chimera was a monstrous fire-breathing creature composed of the parts of multiple animals: upon the body of a lioness with a tail that terminated in a snake's head, the head of a goat arose on her back at the center of her spine. The term chimera has also come to mean, more generally, an impossible or foolish fantasy. (yes, yes Wikipedia...imaginary scholarship befits imaginary creatures.) I thought I should try drawing something from my imagination and this is the result. I was thinking about the monster mashups created by this thoughtful and multi-talented blogger: look, look they are so cute!
I think the Rhinosnail is my favorite creation, but I really enjoy the dubious look the Turtlebeast is giving me, as if to say "A Duckaroo? Do you really expect me to believe in something as absurd as a Duckaroo?"

Super! (Thanks for asking!)

If you'd told me yesterday that today I would draw a self portrait, I would have told you that I had no intention of drawing any representation of myself in this project, ever. But that, of course, was yesterday.

I was didn't feel very well today, and did a whole lot of feverish sleeping. I kept jolting into consciousness with thoughts of my to-do list, but a spinning head kept me from doing very much very well. This might have been the physical reaction to over three months of working 8:30 to midnight most nights, to working six days a week, if not more.... and then finally quitting my job yesterday.

If someone new had seen me today, would they think I was lazy? Did it matter how much and how hard I have worked in the past few months, when it has come to so little? Would it help if I told them that in that same time, I had run a marathon? Am I only superhuman if I am superhuman every single day?

I also thought fitfully about this project, and my relationship with drawing over the course of my lifetime (not something I'll delve into today.) I remember I invented a cartoon character called Super Nicky, and then wrote stories about him for my younger sister. I drew a rough remembrance of him. I think it was my own youthful geekiness, in combination with my inability to draw the muscled figures of comic books, that made my hero so scrawny. The person I felt compelled to add to today's drawing strangely became myself, about to go for a run. She eyes Super Nicky with affectionate (sisterly?) amusement. She looks as though she might have a better idea what a super hero is.

I wish she would tell me.

Blank Slate

I've been waiting for inspiration, and I fear I may have found it! "Fear," yes... It will mean a lot of work if I follow through. I hope I can!

A few years ago this brilliant gentleman committed himself to this brilliant idea which he so effectively popularized that it lead to the creation of this community.

For those not inclined to follow links- Scores of people have been taking photos of themselves every day for a year. Their perspectives are, literally and figuratively, a little wider than my first introduction to a 365 day visual project, which was this woman's time lapse of her own face over the course of three years (I just found one video I saw only once in 2006... MARVEL AT MY GOOGLE FU!)

I should also mention another project I first discovered in 2006- Playwright Suzin-Lori Parks' 365 Days/ 365 Plays project. Of course, she used her own language to write her short plays. I am not nearly so ambitious.

So just what AM I doing? I'll be drawing a sketch, every day for a year, and writing something about it. If there are other lex loci that I decide upon, I will let you know.

This sketch is a still life based in real life. I thought it appropriate to start with a blank slate, especially since I happen to own one that means a lot to me. It's in the style of an old-fashioned school child's slate (although whether it's a real antique or a real old fake antique I can't be sure.) It might have once been bound better, but now it's essentially two robe-bordered planks embedded with chalkboards and tied together with two pieces of string. One slate has a single long crack.

This object now sits on my nightstand (also pictured) but it once belonged to my grandmother (who bought it at a yard sale) and it sat on her kitchen table. When I lived with my grandparents I kept a very different schedule then they did, so they would leave me notes about where they were, what I should clean, and where I could find food. It would have been easy enough to distinguish between the handwriting of two people, but my Grampie, an engineer, made it especially simple by ALWAYS WRITING IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

This sketch took me longer to upload than to draw. Perhaps this project will finally teach me to use my scanner.