Yoga Baby, Yoga

Fin.

The last of the drawings I did last week at the Draw A Thon are up and at em' and on FlickR.

I am really happy that I managed to document all the drawings that I liked from this year's showing. Sometimes I don't actually finish scanning them because they're just overwhelming. I'm glad I get to blog about this kind of stuff that normally wouldn't see the light of day. It keeps me motivated and on track.

My blog really helps me in so many ways. How does your blog help you?

Friday is My Favorite

These are my favorite colors:

What's your favorite thing today?

Coffee Break

Remember a few weeks ago when I blogged about my daily afternoon constitutional NYC side? Remember when I told you all about Starbucks and my fancy new coffee tumblr?



This morning I got texts from all over the globe alerting me as such:
"I JUST SAW THE STARBUCKS COMMERCIAL. SO RAD!!!"

Now you can see the Starbucks Commercial too!!



AND. AND. If you are reading this and it's still the 15th of April, you can shimmy on down to your local Starbux and get yourself a cuppa on the house, if you're taking the pledge and saving the world, that is, one cup at a time.

I Draw Girls

On one particularly long day in college a life-drawing professor chided me. Somehow (how?) he sensed my feigned interest in drawing the male form. Perhaps I was nibbling on the end of a charcoal pencil while a nude man graced the stage. When i draw men it's with half my heart.



"Amber, you can't base an entire career on just drawing girls...." he sing-songed.
I paused in thought, then recommitted myself to my Bristol, realizing with a sigh that he was probably right.



What have seven years of reflection on this point taught us? Oh, I know.

BOO YA.



I say neigh, Professor. Neigh to that.

My life drawing from this year's Pratt Draw-A-Thon can be seen on FlickR. I'll be uploading the last of the drawings that happened this year this coming weekend.

Naked. Nude. Bare.

It's been a tough week.

I am tired in a "not just sleepy" way. I know here at She Sure is Sketchy you're used to seeing a happy artist. But sometimes I have hard days and sometimes those stretch into hard weeks. It has been a very hard week.

It has been so hard in fact, that I actually considered not attending the 22nd Annual Pratt Draw-A-Thon. I've never missed it, not once, in the last decade.

Sandra, my constant motivator, promised to come and draw with me until midnight, even though she had a crazy - early morning class at F.I.T. on Saturday. Her support was vital to arrival at Pratt. Amidst this "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" conversation I realized that my loyalty would get me in the end. I just couldn't turn my back on tradition. Pratt has had me at every Draw-A-Thon since I first arrived in New York. I felt that we owed it to one another.

I grabbed some odds and ends, graphite pencils, the new sketchbook I bought at Brooklyn Museum last week, a butcher paper sketchbook I've been wanting to try, some Tombow Markers, a little pot of watercolor paints and a waterbrush and made it out the door, feet pointed towards Clinton Hill.

In one of my favorite, dance/challenge/coming of age/New York movies, a wayward ballerina struggling with her life and decisions that she doesn't remember making but that face her none-the-less is told to take all that angst "to the bar".

Last night I realized that my personal bar is life drawing. It fixes everything wrong in me, and it balances me, creating a perfect zen of work that is at once constricting and freeing. It is hard and it is worth doing.

Twelve hours of straight drawing a moving figure leaves you raw and stripped. It also knocks down your barriers and breaks through your walls.

I am thankful I went, glad I had the strength to stay until dawn (with every passing year the stamina it takes is more fleeting) and happy with what I have to show after 12 late night hours at my Alma Mater. Most of all I am thankful that I have something that is mine, and something that always makes sense, even when other things might seem a hazy shade of winter.

I've uploaded some of my butcher paper favorites to my FlickR account.

I'll show off the monotone watercolors I did over the course of the evening in the next day or so.

If you haven't had the chance to draw the figure in a while, I suggest writing and filling yourself a prescription. It just might be the thing you've been missing.

I Can Can-Can

You can Can-Can too!

These girls are most definitely 'Linked'.

in another life-time, when I went to fancy art school, and had a face piercing, and still thought Williamsburg was cool - I was obsessed with Burlesque.

This morning's Illo Friday prompt reminded me of those fabulous care-free days where my only real problems in life were all-nighters, waiting for my scholarship money to come in so that I could lavish it on expensive pencils, and figuring out how to get the oil paint off the couch.

This sketch happened in illustrator. It took about ten minutes. I have a new goal to do frantically fast digital sketches on Friday Morning after I get Penelope's emails and then to finish and refine the sketches over the week, in whatever medium they need to be fine tuned in. Then next Friday you can see where I actually went with the illustration. So check back next Friday ;) I'm telling you so I actually do it.

As always I'm a comment-loving girl of sorts.

First Night At BroMu

Once a month the Brooklyn Museum (among many other museums in New York) hosts 'First Night'. This remarkable event occurs every first Saturday. It is something to see and something to celebrate with good friends and good food and interesting art.

These are my dancin' feet:

They are not to be confused with my 'just standing there feet'. For one thing, they are on this sick lit dance floor and even if I wasn't listening to crazy drum beats with hundreds of crazy Brooklynites I'd be dancing, just. because. of. the. floor.

One of the major perks about First Night is that it's always accompanied with an outrageous dance party.
out"RAGE"ous.
.

OH and it's ABSOLUTELY, TOTALLY, COMPLETELY, FREE.

Oh and it's open until way crazy late (as I think all museums should be all the time).

Oh. AND all the exhibits are open and free too.

What a recipe for fun.

Here's the one thing I illegally unknowingly snapped from the Kiki Smith exhibit. It's a clump of thorns.

No. It's a heart! Check out that shadow.
"Life is pain. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something."
Kiki just gets it. In that 'I hate men' kind of way. High-five, sister.
FYI - Kiki Smith's Sojourn is going strong 'til Fall
If it's been a while since you've been to First Night I suggest dusting it off. This is my favorite 'just girls' picture of the evening. With all that feminism everywhere it just didn't feel "right" to document any men.

If you're in the neighborhood for fun, and for Brooklyn - a beautiful combo. I suggest this white wonder of bloom and spring and Brooklyn - museum that is.

Sketchiness

It is Time

Pratt's Annual Draw-a-Thon will commence at 7:00PM this Friday.

I will be there.
Will you?

Speak of it in hallowed tones.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAA!!!