Monthly artists meet at Creative Cay (5959 Anno Ave, Pine Castle, FL 32809) for life drawing sessions. The fee is $10. Old school drawing horses are circled around the model stand. It is the type of artistic environment that makes me feel at home. When you enter the studio large historic photos from the Disney Feature Animation greeted me. I always feel proud to have been a small part of that period of animation history. I don’t get out there as often as I would like since events I plan to sketch often are during the same hours.
Most evenings the models wear costumes so that there is a fun theme for the night. This evening the theme was “Dawn of Man” so less was more. We listen to music that supports the theme for inspiration as we work. It makes for a great work environment.
Most poses were 5 minutes or less, so there is always a high pitched frenetic energy in the room. When the model took a break, I took that as a a cue to do a sketch of the studio space and sketch the model in his bathrobe.
I really should get out to these type of sketch opportunities more often. It loosens me up and helps the next sketch done on location feel more spontaneous and inspired. Artists have sketched since the days of cave paintings. It is important to keep that tradition alive in this digital age. Most of the sketches I did this night were done digitally on mu iPad using Procreate. It is hard to get messy since there is nothing to spill when working digitally.