Lately I've been draiwng Body Poses. Keeps me fresh for drawing Fashion Sketches at Parties.

Here's one of them:

I keep a folder of paper in my car ~ along with leftover markers that I wouldn't use anymore at Events. I usually use it when I want to draw pictures in my car, but sometimes I bring it in with me to Starbucks or something.

It got Full again today. I looked at some of the pictures that I had previously drawn, and I felt happy to see a batch of Fashion Sketches that I drew for myself inside the car folder. I probably made them a while back ~ based on random photos ~ as Warm-Ups for before going in to handle Party where I would have been drawing Fashion Sketches.

Except the one with the (2) heads. I'm guessing that I would have drawn that one while waiting for a Bus or a Train. It looks like I was using a traveling-person as reference.

I Looove drawing Fashion Sketches. Looking at Fashion. Everybody does it ~

Here are a Few Fashion Sketches that I drew at a Sweet 16. I felt like these drawings were pretty Tame, but I still evoked the sort of Surprise Responses that I like to see. A good time was had by all

Oh No! I didn't put a Clip into my New Fashion Sketch Supplies. Interesting to see how a person functions when something 'goes wrong'. I didn't skip a beat. I just Taped each paper to my Drawing Board as needed.

I was thrown like this several times while Drawing at this Party. Oh! That's what comes from 'trying too hard' ~ but I'm sure I'll ultimately end up in a better place. This is how it happens. This is what happened.

I've drawn Fashion Sketches at Events many times. But since I'm primarily a Caricature Artist, I just brought my Caricature Supplies and drew Fashion Sketches with them. Black Markers, Gray Markers, and Color Sticks. But at my my most recent Fashion Sketch Event before this one, I was asked to use Only Markers (Color), No Colorsticks. Since it had been a last-minute Event, I had to bring whatever Color Markers I just happened to have here (mostly from when I do Caricatures on tshirts). Turned out that I liked the way the Fashion Sketches looked with the Colored Markers. So before this night's Event, I went out and bought over $50 of Colored Markers and I made a clean new box for them. Efficient. Dedicated. Me.

I'm glad I included just a few Color Sticks anyway. I had just felt like it would be a good idea in case I don't feel comfortable with the new medium at this event. And it turned out to be Very needed.

Because there were all sorts of things I felt surprised oh no! with.

The very first thing was that I had to use Tape instead of my Clip. Because I hadn't realized that I keep my Clip in the Supply box that I always use for Caricatures. (I kept the Tape on in the Photo that I'm showing you here ~ but of course, I took it off before giving it to the Party Guests.

My very next step ~ Oh No! I didn't include my usual Black and Gray Markers. Since I didn't need to buy more of them, I didn't think of putting them into the new Fashion Sketch Supply Box.

My first tentative fix for this was to start drawing the Outline with a Blue Marker. I wasn't feeling right with it ~ because it was hard to 'turn on a dime' and do what I hadn't planned on doing. Then I remembered ~ I keep some Old Markers in the Back of my Cart ~ for Drawing on my time off ~ found Only One Old Black Marker that had the thin point that I wanted. Good thing I'm accustomed to drawing with Old Markers on my time off ~ because that one had to last me throughout the Event. And I relied on my Black Color Stick more than I usually would have.

Then I found out that Colored Markers don't show up the same Color on Colored Paper as they do on White Paper. I wanted to use Colored Paper for many of tonight's drawings ~ and I found that the Color Sticks were usually better than the Markers when working on Colored Paper. But egads ~ I had been careless with choosing the Color Sticks because I didn't expect to use them. So I didn't have Red. Or Light Blue. Or Burnt Sienna. I had to use Markers for those Colors. I quickly came up with an ingenious method for perking up the Bright Dark Red (on White Paper) that barely looked Red on Blue or Brown Paper. I used an Orange Color Stick as highlights on top of the Red Marker, and it worked great. They really Popped! Whew. As far as the Light Blue though ~ didn't show up on the Colored Papers at all. I just switched it to Light Green ~ chagrinned. But it did have the same Feel as the Light Blue.

and what else, what else. Oh! I remember. I was Constantly Searching for the right Marker to use. I discovered ~ now that I am Experienced with using Colored Markers at Events ~ that you Have to Have them arranged Orderly. You can't just glance in the box and see what you want the way you can with Color Sticks. I'll have to set something up for it the Next time I use Colored Markers for a Fashion Sketch Event, but to function tonight ~ how I managed ~ I just chose a Very Few of the most used ones, and I kept them at the Top Right of my box.

Soooo..... my Audience was not at all aware of my aghk-what-to-dos. I kept the Event moving smoothly. I feel glad that I've had enough Experience that there was plenty that I could fall back on. But this is not usually my way ~ which is to be perfectly prepared.