On and Off the Grid: Portrait Party

The rules: Everyone in the group arranges themselves in a circle. Each is handed a  stack of paper, one sheet per number of participants. One by one, we sketch each other. When your name is called, you still as still as a statue for 10 minutes while all the other sketchers capture your likeness. Just when you think you can't hold that smile or not scratch that itch one more second, the next sketcher's name is called to model. At the end of the day, each sketcher has created 17 portraits. Here are mine:

Afterwards, we arrange all the portraits on the ground in a grid. Once laid out, follow any row horizontally and you see that artist's output. Pick any row from top to bottom and you can see each artist's take on a specific model. Much easier to see it than to explain it, so here:

the famous grid

It was insanely cold that day, even inside the atrium, but our cold-of-body, but warm-of-heart sketchers were troopers:

Paula, April, and Mark

lovely sketchers all in a row

the circle

Portrait artist, Anne Watkins, on a "busman's holiday"

Mary gets down to business

John says "cheese"

Part of the fun for me is watching the passerbys. (Or is it the passersby?) Either way, in NYC, there's never a dull moment.

 A group of doll collectors meet here regularly

A proud creations from the Den of Angels, the doll-collectors group

Hope they were on their lunch break

Lest we forget where we were, this sign downstairs reminded us who's boss

After the throwdown in the atrium, many of us headed off for a refreshment. We warmed up, shared our portraits (and the strategies and supplies employed for creating our portraits), and raised a glass together.

Josh & Emily après-toast

All in all, it was totally worth braving the cold for this.