Every Monday night at about 8:30PM the Mellow Mushroom (11680 East Colonial Drive), holds an event called Drink & Draw. I heard there was prize money for the best sketch, so I couldn’t resist going out for a pizza in the name of art. A waitress seated me at a booth at the edge of the room. I didn’t notice any sort of staging area so I asked her about the event. She pointed to the sound system set up on the opposite side of the room. She said a DJ would announce the contest and then a model would pose on some chairs for 3 five minute poses. The prizes were as follows:
1st place would be a $25 Mellow Mushroom gift certificate.
2nd place would be a $10 Mellow Mushroom gift certificate.
3rd place would be a Wild Garlic Ball appetizer.
I ordered a vegetarian pizza with the works and a Mountain Dew. The announcer walked around to all the tables and handed out paper and pencils. I took a sheet of paper to be polite but I had already started the sketch in my sketchbook. The model, dressed as Bat Girl stood on a couple of chairs and took heroic poses. The lighting left her in the darkness and with so many tables in front of me I seldom had a clear view of her. I finally had to get up and walk to the front of the room. I leaned up against a 10 foot tall fiberglass mushroom and quickly jotted down her pose. When it came time to judge I of course was still adding watercolor washes. I didn’t win anything since I was still at work.
KC arrived and joined me for a second round of sketching. She ordered a soda and I offered her some of my pizza which I couldn’t finish. The second model was dressed as a rock and roll musician and she held a guitar. I was still working on the color washes but this time I took perhaps a minute each to jot down the poses. I wasn’t inspired by the stiff poses and the drawings sucked. KC moved to a closer table and worked diligently while I went back to my sketchbook. When the prizes were announces for the second set of poses, KC was the grand prize winner. She used the certificate to pay for the pizza and drinks so my sketching adventure that night cost me nothing!
Nude Nite – Body Paint
My second trip to Nude Nite, I decided I wanted to sketch the body painters at work. A large crowd of photographers and lookers stood around them creating a phalanx that I marched around seeking an opening where I could stand and draw. I finally decided to push closer and sit on my portable stool. Some people still stood in front of me, but many ducked out of the way just as they would for a photographer. As I worked, several burlesque dancers sashayed in front of me and started vouguing in front of the bar suddenly I was surrounded by a locust swarm of photographers. My line of sight to the body painters was lost so I started drawing the posters on the wall. I knew the posturing for the cameras would be short lived and sure enough the crowd of photographers soon melted back into the crowd.
This evening I bumped into KC and Bob. They were standing a short distance from the two nude sketches KC had on exhibit. A young couple was discussing her work and KC desperately wanted to know what they were saying. I pushed up as close as I could to the couple to try and listen in. KC pushed up beside me. With all the ambient noise I could still not pick out what they were saying. KC finally said, “Should I talk to them?” I said,”Of course.” Then, as they started discussing art, I wandered off to do another sketch.
I am sitting in the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, PA for a second morning drinking a Serious Blend Latte and using the only free wifi in town to write this post. A costumer walks in and starts a conversation with the proprietor. He said,”My biggest self defeat is taking myself to seriously. I can never meet my own expectations.” Billy Holiday is softly singing, “God Bless the Child who’s got his own.”
Highland Cattle
At the Scottish Highland Games I noticed some people wandering around with these placid quiet cattle on a tether. I didn’t get too close since the horns looked very sharp. At the crest of a hill beneath a huge Oak tree, I found this small enclosure with several adults and quite a few calfs. Even though there was plenty of hay to eat in the enclosure the cattle would always approach anyone who held a handfull of hay for them to eat. They kept sticking their wet noses through the bars near me and looking at me with their sad eyes. I guess they thought I had some tender morsel hidden in my sketch pad. Karen Cali, a fellow urban sketcher, was also at the Highland Games and when I told her I had sketched the cattle, she said, “They are hairy and horny just like most men I have known.”
Later near the games fields, I was walking over to the food booths, one of which featured a picture of one of these cattle, and the sign said this was the finest, most tender beef you would ever eat. They were selling Highland Beef burgers, but I didn’t have the heart to try one. As I got closer to the burger stand, I almost stepped in a large pile of dung. I wondered aloud, “They must have been bringing over one of the cattle on a tether and he read the sign and realized his fate.”