Draw-A-Thon

Here is the second part of my day last Saturday.

For the last few years the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan has held a Draw-A-Thon as a fundraiser. They have nude and dressed models that are posing from 9 am to 6 pm. Each room probably had 5 models posing at a time. Students, artists, and people in-between come for the day or part of the day. Students have to have parental permission to sketch the nude models who are in a separate room, but the clothed models are available to everyone. Once you pay your admission you are given a band to wear on your wrist and we were free to move from room to room or leave the building for a while and then return. This isn't an actual "NYC Urban Sketching" kind of outing but many of our members came for part or all of the day. We went after Sotheby's and arrived about 3. Some of our members have gone to this in the past but this was my first time attending.

I went to the room with the nudes first. They posed for assorted times, sometimes 5 minutes and sometimes much longer. Here are the nudes I sketched. Most of these (except for the woman) were done with a water soluble graphite pencil.

These were all quick poses so I did them all on one page.

I sketched a few of the artists between poses.

Then I moved to the other room. This character did long poses and always returned to the same pose for those who were doing complete paintings. He was fun in his very interesting outfit.

Then at 6 pm the sketching stops and they bring in free pizza for everyone...It was quite a day!