July Sketchmeet

This month’s Sketchmeet was co-hosted by cartoonist/illustrator Rachael Ball. The hosts set a series of quick-fire drawing challenges throughout the two-hour evening for us all to partake in.

Apon arrival, I was offered complimentary alcohol beverages, courtesy of Camden Town Brewery. Soft drinks weren’t free of charge, however… I know, surprising! I took a couple of beers and gave them away 🙂

The warm up exercise was to illustrate stick men expressing emotions such as fear, lust, and rage. I grabbed a purple Promarker and scribbled an attempt at several of those feelings. I used mostly movement and facial expressions to try and convey the words, though choosing to apply a single colour most likely limited the potential. Would you be able to guess the feeling without it being spelt out in capitals?

Next, we each had a card with a phrase/word written on the back of it. Mine was unbrella. This task was to create a storyboard, using four panels. Collision was the topic of the first cell. I opted to depict a close-up of a raindrop colliding with the brolly’s canopy. Cell number two had the theme of deterioration. I added more detail, zooming out to show a female with a weather-beaten umbrella, standing in the middle of the rain. The penultimate panel is where I sketched the mangled rain shield planted in soil, where it undergoes a transformation, between little plants. For the fourth and final scene growth I redrew the umbrella exactly the same in the middle of two large trees.

After a short interval, it was time to draw a speed portrait of the person to our right. I managed to churn this out in a few minutes:

This is my subject’s sketch of me:

The use of colour is simply amazing!

Our final project of the night was to create a collaborative story. I started one about a monochrome purple rainbow (see the photo at the top of this post!)

Altogether, awesome night. Well done again, House of Illustration!

2 thoughts on “July Sketchmeet”

  1. Greetings! I’ve been reading your site for a while now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from New Caney Texas! Just wanted to tell you keep up the great job!

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