Hello, Art Monkeys.
As you have no doubt heard by now, Hollywood legend Tura Satana passed away earlier this year at the age of 72. We at Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School are great admirers of Ms. Satana, so we decided to celebrate her life the only way we know how - through burlesque life drawing. Come to think of it, that's pretty much how we do everything. We had wanted to do a tribute to her most famous and celebrated role, Tomo, the fan dancing femme fatale of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., but we were unable to find a convincing fan on such short notice, so instead we opted for the theme of Varla from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, which I understand also has a following. Amber Ray played Tura playing Varla and Kate Black photographed.
Ni-hao, Art Monkeys!
As a sophisticated cosmopolite, I have a deep respect for all lands in this world and feel at home among all of their bizarre, stupid, and nonsensical cultures. As a pedant, I love forms of entertainment that make me seem smart for appreciating them, by virtue of most people hating them, of which opera is the undisputed king. So it was only natural that I was excited when I found out that Dr. Sketchy's was doing a session based on the Peking Opera and positively elated when I was told that the models would be the always delightful Dame CuchiFrita and the voluptuous Calamity Chang. Hosting this session, I learned so many little-known facts about China. For instance:
The food that you eat in Chinese restaurants is
Greetings, Art Monkeys.
On May 8, a very special session of Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School was held. Our theme was Jack the Ripper - the 19th century murderer of 5 prostitutes in and around Whitechapel. We hoped to raise awareness that violence against sex workers is still a problem today, especially in recent years, with the so-called "Long Island Ripper" who has killed at least 4 in and around Suffolk county, very close to our home. Specifically, we wished to raise support of the Red Umbrella Project's "Protect, Don't Prosecute" campaign to grant amnesty to sex workers providing information that may lead to the apprehension of this murderer. The Whitechapel Murderer was
Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, Art Monkeys!
As you may know, Time Lords are everywhere - in our everyday lives, in pop culture, and even in our burlesque life drawing classes. In case you have been living under a rock (and I won't hold that against you, with the rents in this city being what they are), the 32nd season of the science fiction phenomenon/lifestyle Doctor Who will be starting this Saturday (April 23) on BBC1 (or, on this side of the Atlantic, the only BBC). To celebrate, we had a special session of Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School with Jeffrey Garber portraying the eleventh Doctor and Someone's Mrs. Reynolds as his current companion Amy Pond. Justin Lussier took
Hello, Art Monkeys.
We all know that modeling is hard work. For those of you who complain about having to move around all the time, you should try standing perfectly still for a while. It's harder than it looks. However, once the model's work is done, the art itself has the even harder job of staying perfectly still for years. It is largely thankless work (Monty Python has explored this theme), which is why at our last session, we allowed figures from a painting to move around and only hold poses for minutes at a time. The painting we appropriated for this session was "Show and Tell" (see above) by Cynthia Von Buhler (see link). Yes, this was
We decided, why should photographers have all the fun? And so, we rounded up our art monkeys and invited them to crash the fight with us, sketchbooks in hand, to document the event with their pencils.
Since only the bravest would dare venture into the fray, we
