¡Bienvenido, monos de arte!

Last week was our tribute to spicy Latina spitfire Frida Kahlo. You know, Frida Kahlo is one of those costumes that you can really pull off with only one accessory (the one between her eyes and her forehead), so it was nice to see the effort that went into truly capturing the spirit of Mexican culture and Kahlo's work in particular the way only white children of the suburbs like us can. As a sidenote, after writing that sentence, I did some research into her ethnic background and found out that Frida Kahlo was of German-Jewish ancestry as much as Mexican, so from an ethnic standpoint, we were actually much closer than I thought when I started writing this blog entry. And channeling that spirit was the ravishing Katelan Foisy, who, like Frida, is a passionate artist known for heavily symbolic and unflinching depictions of the female experience. And to document this event, we had special guest photographer Steve Prue, who, like Kahlo and Foisy (and Molly Crabapple), gets paid for his pictures of weird chicks.

Steve showed up early and got some pictures of the underappreciated helper monkeys creating the set.

But the set was not fully finished until the session was under way, as we see Frida herself here literally completing the scene.

In this highly symbolic scene, Frida Kahlo, like many before her, contemplates Aradia Ardor's mortality.

The audience is an essential part of the Dr. Sketchy's experience, but they do tend to be a less thematically coherent part.

I'm not sure what this guy's story is, but I'm pretty sure he had one.

Our first entry for the Left-Handed Drawing contest drew a less than strictly representational version of the model.

The winner of the Left-Handed Drawing contest received an Etch-a-Sketch, which she is free to operate with either hand, or even both!

John and Syd hosted the session with their usual level of style and aplomb, which is to say none at all.

I think this pose displays what people mean when they talk about the pain evident in Frida's work.

In this highly symbolic pose, Frida contemplates Jerry Garcia's mortality.

This has to be the most flattering depiction of Frida Kahlo I have ever seen.

Comparing it to this painting that Frida did herself, you might notice one very essential element is missing. That's right: monkeys. Thus, we had our audience add monkeys to their drawings for our second contest.

This drawing was allowed in the contest only because I was assured that the monkey in her hand was sleeping and not dead.

In this drawing, Frida is cruelly taunting the monkeys.

This one was disqualified from the contest, because those are clearly not monkeys.

For drawing animals, our winner received a stuffed animal from Squishable. We love Squishable SOOOOO much!

In case anyone ever wondered what the helper monkeys do while the audience is busy drawing, the answer is in John's hand.

In our numerous tributes to our favourite artists, we like to add a bit of ourselves into the artists' body of work. In this session, we contributed something that is too often missing from Kahlo's paintings - underpants. Honestly, there are very few things in life that cannot be improved upon by adding a sexy woman in her underpants. The only thing I can think of is a sexy woman without underpants.

The problem with a frame that fancy is that anything you put in it is bound to be upstaged.

Katelan's last costume was inspired by "The Broken Column" (shown above), so if you were at the session and weren't sure what the costume was about, now you have something else to be confused by.

Holding your arm up like that for 20 minutes is really suffering for your art.

Katelan Foisy is a friend to living creatures, and apparently more than just a friend to some of the birds.

Our last contest was to incorporate Diego Rivera, who I just found out was also of Jewish ancestry, so for those of you who are keeping score - between Diego and Frida we have more than half of a Spaniard, less than half of a Mexican, and one full Jew.

I'm not sure if "Capitalism = Syphillis" is something Diego Rivera ever actually said, but it sounds like him.

This is a side of Diego that I'm sure many of his models were well familiar with.

Many have noted the tempestuous nature of Frida's marriage to Di-- Holy shit! Did she just dismember Diego and stuff him into a bucket?!

Here we have a more idyllic view of their relationship and one less likely to give me nightmares.

Helper monkey Yao Xiao enjoys her prize for this totally-not-fixed contest, a signed copy of Curiosities by Travis Louie.

And that was the end of the session. Thank you to Molly, Melissa, John, Justin, Foley, Tim, Becky, Dolcy, Yao, and everyone who makes Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School what it is. I'll see you again soon.

- Syd Bernstein