I’m getting into the habit of keeping my sketchbook close at hand all the time. I take it with me to my design classes at UCLA because a lot of times it’s easier to sketch a point than explain it verbally. The students will watch me draw and their light bulbs start flashing. Oh, duh!
I sketch fellow students in a class I’m taking. I aim to be unobtrusive and I try to avoid staring at my subjects while I’m drawing them. One thing I noticed is that, while most people will quickly realize when a camera is being pointed at them, they will be less aware of being drawn. They think I’m just taking copious notes. Most of the time they won’t notice at all until the person next to me happens to glance at my book and exclaim, “Oh! That’s Rick. You drew Rick.” And then, of course, Rick will have to come check it out when class ends. A lot of conversations have started this way, because of something I drew in my sketchbook. It’s almost like a social networking app, but in person and with less technology.
A few weeks ago someone sitting near me (who doesn’t know me) asked to look at my book and commented, “Hey, did you every think about doing this for a living?”
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Isn’t it odd how sketching seems to be a way to start conversations? I did the sketchcrawl solo last Saturday and ended up meeting all sorts of people – Canadian med students off to India, mothers who invited me to Bible studies, indie rock singers…
I really like your sketches – side and rear portraits are so unusual and so catch a different side of a person.
It’s funny you mention this now, because I just started doing that over the past few weeks. I went to a great blues bar near the Coliseum over the weekend and sat and sketched the band for hours. I was pretty crappy at first, but after I started warming up, the sketches actually became recognizable and the musicians obviously weren’t bothered by my staring at them. I had to be a little more sneaky when it came to sketching the patrons, but luckily no one noticed.