Ramey Holsman hit the ground running tonight with a superb debut at Latest Music Bar, Brighton. As you may have seen in this post, Dr. Sketchy is a franchise which combines a burlesque atmosphere with life drawing. For tonight’s “Back To School” event, the room was decked out with a lectern, a school desk and large scale cartoons of schoolgirls from the pen of Ms. Holsman (a.k.a. Cookie Chan).
Ramey couldn’t have wished for a better compère than Chris Cresswell, playing the role of a haughty St. Trinian’s schoolmistress. I don’t know how he kept up that shrill voice all night, but the man’s a professional and maintained character throughout. Full marks to the models too: everyone had their part to play in bringing their good humour around to everybody in the audience. Holly Ray was the star model of tonight’s show, so most of the drawing was focused on her. She also performed a great medley of school-related pop hits from Pink Floyd through Britney to The Killers, with an accompanying schoolboy on guitar and backing vocals.
Mr. Cresswell got us all laughing with a bit of audience participation, before throwing us a few curveballs in the form of warm-up drawing tasks: “draw the nose of the person next to you”, “draw a tortoise with your non-drawing hand” and so on. We were then given the main sessions which were of varying lengths (generally one, five or ten minute poses, with the occasional twenty minute pose too).
I wish I’d got more sketches I’d be willing to show you of the other models, but my rusty speed-drawing abilities will need some more warming up yet! Jen is especially perfect for a show like this; she looks like a living Gil Elvgren pin-up but I’ll need more practise before I can really do justice to her, or the fantastically cheeky Naughty Girl.
The next show is for Hallowe’en, and will be held on October 24th – I’ll be carving pumpkins for the event! Buy your tickets now to get a discount via the Dr. Sketchy Brighton site, and stay up to date with news by joining the Facebook page.
Find a branch near your home on the Dr. Sketchy’s Branch List.
