Dr Sketchy's Burlesque Drop-in Life-Drawing - June Session

Toronto now has a Dr Sketchy again. I went last Friday night. Burlesque life-drawing, short poses, at a bar in Kensington Market. The theme was quite gruesome - cannibalism - and gruesomely funny in its own way. The first model began with a burlesque strip and came out holding a silicone severed wrist and hand which she gnawed on as she twirled and pranced and shook her goods while removing her lingerie until she was splattered in 'blood' - something I didn't have time to draw in but other artists did. Other props were a huge fork and spoon. It was a ribald and fun evening. Every so often there was a 'challenge' - make a poster with a caption (I love you so much I could eat you up) - and then artists who want bring their drawings to the front and the audience chooses the winner by clapping harder. Prize was a free drink. Or we were to work on one drawing in groups of 2 or 3 - I forgot to photo ours. Prize was some t-shirts. And the final pose was the MC (in top hat, silver suit and lots of fake hair beard and stuff) with a burlesque dancer/model on his shoulders holding a knife - and a fabulous 'action figure' artist won the audience prize for his rendition, a photography book. Most of the folks work in the arts field and it's a wacky, friendly, fun life-drawing venue even if the poses are way too short for someone like me. The food is excellent and so is the beer on tap.

These are my drawings from the evening - beginning with the only one I've tinkered with since - and inked it in - it looks very Beardsley-like doesn't it? I am reminded of Beardsley's Salome series, sort of gruesome and in a 'theme genre' I guess.

They're done in pencil, conte and charcoal on 18" x 24" Strathmore med drawing paper.

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sketch

Drawn this week. Some of it while watching a movie, 'Times and Winds' (Turkey 2006) dir. Reha Erdem. I think that's an imagination of the olive tree. It is the children (young teens) who sleep, not the men, so I don't know who he is. Maybe Blake's 'Albion.' Written late last night on the back: "The land is impregnated. Post-Edwardian man sunbathing while the plane crashes into the grass, but it's paper. Airplane. Man." ©Brenda Clews 2014, 11" x 8.5", Lamy fountain pen and Noodler's black ink, Pentallic 130lb archival paper.
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Sunday morning self-portrait

Sunday morning self-portrait. June 1, 2014 ©Brenda Clews. So far, I don't like this sketch. That may change: sometimes it doesn't. I thought a portion of the face might be interesting and so used an oval mirror and included the glasses lens so the eye is a bit over-sized. Probably I look a bit better than this - if one took a photo - but I want to be ruthless with myself. Still, while I wasn't into drawing this morning, I did manage something, and should keep this up since it is currently the only drawing I do and a few hours once a week is better than nothing. I hope to go to a drop-in life-drawing session next week. 11" x 8.5", Lamy fountain pen with Noodler's Black Ink, Pentalic 130lb archival paper.

I am still without a computer, so this was photographed with an iPhone and uploaded to a specific album in Picasa with an app I had to buy (Web Albums - A Picasa Photo viewer & etc by Pixite LLC), and then posted to my blog via my small iPad mini with another app I had to buy that would allow me to post from a Picasa album (Blogsy). It's sort of nuts, but Google only allows you to upload photos to G+ and  not to a Picasa album of your choice, and their Blogger app only gives you the option to upload directly from your device and not import from an album in Picasa. Justifying these small expenses since I now have a stream-lined portable system that fits easily in my purse to go anywhere, anytime.

NO idea how to re-size the images, though! Don't see an html option in Blogger. I'll try opening Blogger in a web page and see if I can do it that way - if they're smaller, you'll know it worked!

Well, that's not a lot of fun - you can add your photos from Picasa into your blog post in the Chrome app. Dang. So that was wasted money on Blogsy. But I did not find any way to upload from your device to a specific Picasa album - not even in Chrome - so the Pixite app is useful. I also found Puffin Web Browser which is even better since it can access Flash on the web - Steve Jobs had a thing about Flash and so all device iOS systems do without (though I still can't upload to a specific album through Puffin, so the Pixite one is good).

Later that evening I did another sketch in semi-darkness from an indistinct image of myself in my iPad Mini screen. A lot of it was done without looking at the paper. 

Posted with Blogsy

I'll be without a computer for about a week - but of course will be on-line via 'devices' - a cell phone, a tablet. I'm trading in my 6 year old iMac and a laptop. I'm presently in the process of stripping them. The format option in Disk Utility simply is not working, so I am deleting everything manually -which is hard. Even though I have everything backed up, I am manually deleting files, deleting years.

And something I have been wanting to do for 10 years and finally did today: I submitted four poems to a journal.

A day of endings and beginnings, then. And beautiful Summer has at last arrived in Toronto - finally!

Have a lovely week!
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Another Sunday Morning Self-Portrait

Between first and second cup of coffee this morning. Another self-portrait done looking into a turned-off computer screen, so not a real mirror, lol. Last Sunday I did one, and now this Sunday - maybe it's a Sunday Morning thing. Anyway, I never seem to make it out to life-drawing sessions, and I will sit still for myself. (c) Brenda Clews. It's on 130lb archival paper, 15" x 11", Lamy fountain pen with Noodler's Black Ink.

I photographed this in direct sun, which I find best for white balance, and then I darkened the lines a bit - and yet I am not seeing the same full scope of the detail in the drawing as I did in last week's self-portrait that was scanned. This one is too large for my scanner.

detail

full-size

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A Victoria Day self-portrait

With a Lamy fountain pen that was scratchy and then would ink but was mostly a lovely scratchy.

A Victoria Day self-portrait done while enjoying a cup of strong coffee. Since I never seem to make it out to life-drawings sessions, I thought I should simply draw the shadow in the computer screen (which was the 'mirror' for this one - rather indistinct and very grey). I don't mind if I don't resemble myself. :)} (Eyes a bit larger than they should be because I had reading glasses on and didn't put the frames in.)

©Brenda Clews, 2014, 11" x 8.5", Noodler's black ink, Lamy fountain pen, archival 130lb Pentalic paper.

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'Clay Lady' (1:29min) is too risqué? Issue with YouTube's rules? Oh, my.

A figurative clay sculpture without any discernable 'details' is considered too risqué? YouTube wants to classify this videopoem as 'adult content'??? She might as well have been wearing a body stocking for all the detail there is. I seem to be running into a few problems with YouTube and mysterious 'violations' of their policies. Since when is figurative art considered porn? Am I supposed to clothe a fairly indistinct clay sculpture (in terms of details of anatomy and the forbidden parts - heck, she doesn't even have nipples) and that is mostly torso? I've been laughing all morning. They threatened to pull it from public viewing but it's still there, for now at least. Though they do appear to have frozen the view counts, something I have requested a review of.

direct link: Clay Lady - short time-lapse

A multi-media production, with subtitles. -- I did the sculpture at the Toronto School of Art. The background is part of my painting, 'Split Mask.' A section of my poem, 'Clay Lady,' is a voiceover with subtitles in the latter half of the video. I shot the video, turned it into .jpgs with SnapMotion, and edited it as stop motion. That's my voice, and I created the music with a cheap keyboard in GarageBand - a musical tone poem. Brenda Clews ©2014. http://brendaclews.com

Perhaps YouTube should offer a fig leaf cover-up in their video enhancement options for rogue artists like me so we can cover up the shame.

I guarantee that Clay Lady does not seek to incite or sell sex.

I refuse to categorize this multimedia art video as 'Adult Content.' And not only that, two more videopoems with similar footage are in production.



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