Join us on Monday, June 12th, for the ninth anniversary session of Dr. Sketchy's Baltimore!

It's also LGBTQ Pride month, as well as the week of Baltimore's Pride celebration, so we'll have as our muse the wonderful Buster Britches to help us celebrate in style with a glittery night of screwing the gender binary!

Now, we understand this may be confusing to some of you since the White House has declared it “The Great Outdoors” month instead—and maybe you jumped the gun and started a John Candy marathon—but we assure you, it is indeed Pride, despite the fact that some folks want to stick their yellow toupee in the sand and pretend it isn’t. The White House's failure to acknowledge Pride month is the latest (but not even close to being the worst) thing to happen in what's been a horrible year for gay rights; Monday will also be the first anniversary of the Pulse tragedy, so it seems like if there was ever a moment to hold a Pride session, this might be it.

Here's more about our model: Buster Britches, the Camp Counselor of Burlesque, hails from Washington DC but has performed around the country, including the legendary Stonewall in NYC. He has been a featured performer at The Americana Burlesque and Sideshow Festival, and loves to bring Halloween to everyone, year 'round. He is big into nerdlesque and is Fluent in Betazoid (but you've probably never heard of it.) Buster is the producer of Camp Variety Cabaret.

Now, if I recall correctly, when we first saw Buster perform at ABSFest in Asheville, Alexis and I turned to each other and said, “Oh my God, we have to have him at Sketchy’s.”

And we did.

It was one of the best sessions we’ve ever had. Make sure to watch to the very end past the credits, too.

Not only was it one of the best sessions we’ve ever had, it represented many of the things we wanted these drawing sessions to be nine long years ago when we started Dr. Sketchy’s Baltimore. A decade ago, on one of our regular trips to NYC, Alexis and I attended the original Dr. Sketchy's, then run by Molly Crabapple (she's one of the artists who created Dr. Sketchy's). Molly had just come through Baltimore on a tour and thrown a session at Atomic Books, and though we’d missed it, we decided to attend one of the sessions in NYC to see what it was like. We came back in love with the idea—a life drawing session that doubled as a fun social event that was a little sexy and not too serious. Somewhere you could hobnob with artists, performers, and folks who like either—and above all, a place where everyone was welcome. (Well, everyone but jerkity jerks.)
After almost a year of waiting impatiently for someone else to bring Sketchy's to Baltimore, we started it ourselves, because going to NYC for Sketchy's was getting expensive, and we knew we couldn't be the only ones in Baltimore who want the experience. Sure enough, we outgrew our much smaller original space in under a year, and we still regularly have sold-out sessions after nine years.

Nine years, folks. It’s been NINE YEARS. This anniversary session will be the 138th session of Dr. Sketchy’s Baltimore—139th, if you count a field trip to DC we did once, back in the day. That’s a lot of filled sketch pads, dropped rhinestones, and cocktails.

To all the amazing performers, artists, friends, and sponsors who've helped us keep going for nearly a decade: we can't possibly thank you enough.

So, bring your art supplies and come celebrate with us—and if you don’t art*, well, just come celebrate.

If you want a glimpse of the past year, check this out:

Our YouTube channel has about 50 other videos you can check out, if you want to see a little Dr. Sketchy’s history.

(*Many of our attendees, btw, have little to no artistic training, so you don't need to be an art star to join us!)

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There'll be contests with prizes from Blick Art Materials, plus adult beverages and the like.

Doors at 6, start at 7. 18+ to draw, 21+ to drink. Show up early to get a good seat.

$12 at the door, $10 if you buy by midnight the night before. http://tinyurl.com/DrSketchysBmoreJune2017 (Please note: advance sales are nonrefundable.)

No photography or messy paints, please (watercolors are fine).

Like our page for the latest updates: http://www.facebook.com/DrSketchysBaltimore

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsketchysbaltimore/

Photo of Buster Britches by Ophelia Hart / Rouge Photography.

Flyer by Alexis de la Rosa.