Greetings from a newbie

Even though I'd heard about The Urban Sketchers  a while ago, it took me until now to get up the nerve to show up for an outing. Frankly, I was a little intimidated. I was picturing a scene where everyone else would be award-winning illustrators and that I would be cast aside as an amateur. Of course, I needn't have worried. While the group is full of incredibly talented folks, for sure, it didn't take long to discover that there is room for anyone who likes to draw, even the occasional sketcher like me. Mark set the tone with his warm welcome and everyone else was lovely, which made it easy to relax into the day.  

Actually, the excitement that day started even before I arrived on location at the Brooklyn Museum. En route:

Once at the museum, there were so many clusters of people, I had no idea where to find everybody. Luckily, Mark had posted his cell phone number ahead of time, so when I rang, he raised his hand, waved me over to the group, and introduced me to the gang.

We scattered around the museum, found spots that tickled our fancy, drew, then moved on to other spots. It was a fabulous day, drawing and meeting new people: two of my favorite things. 

We all started out on the 4th floor:

From there, several of us took a trip down to Egypt:

I proceeded to get lost inside the Palace of Versailles:

I had such a good time that I came back again for the Portrait Party this past Saturday. 

As Mark and Svetlana both mentioned in their posts, we each took turns posing and then drawing each other in 10 minute spurts. As a first-time model, I can report that posing is not as easy as it looks. When it was my turn, my eyes twitched non-stop for several minutes until I was able to settle down and not focus on the fact that everyone else was focused solely on me.

A few portraits here.  Amazed how much you can accomplish in just 10 minutes. 

Swaminathan

Ben

Lance

Svetlana

Mark, Amy, and Toy hard at work:

Joy, Swaminathan, Amy, Jim, and Svetlana enjoy a down moment in the atrium:

Two takes of Deborah:

Tools of the trade:

For me, the best part was seeing everyone's work laid out all together on the floor; 12 different interpretations of each person, from 12 different vantage points:

To sum up the day, it was a blast! 

(Shout-out to Mark for providing the paper and to Jason for a much-appreciated drawing tip, in response to my gasps of frustration.)

This concludes my first-ever blog post. Glad to have found this inspiring group.