Go Figure! Sketch Night July 2025

 This past Saturday was the re-emergence of the Go Figure! sketch night that was usually held at Rainy Day Art Supplies. They have been in the process of moving to a new location, so this time we were at the Grosse Pointe Congregational Church. And, this time we had a mermaid model! Amanda, who is one of the aquarists at the Belle Isle Aquarium in Detroit is also a cosplayer and did a most awesome job. 

It was good to see some old friends that I haven't seen in a while. I've been doing a few different sketch events these past few months and it is interesting that there is some crossover between us artists, but they also have their own uniqueness. I'll see different people at different events and it's all good. I like that. here are some of the sketches that I did on Saturday.

Detroit Zoo Sketches

 

So, I did get in a couple of sketches from yesterday's trip to the Detroit Zoo. Nuka, the polar bear at the top was an experiment with capturing movement, as he was on the go. I'm not sure that I succeeded with this one, but I still kind of like it. Does that count?

Then there were a couple of camels just before being fed some carrots. They have interesting heads. 

Resist!

 

3x4 sticker

A few months ago, one of the scientists that I follow on social media was talking about how resistant ammonites were and are. They have survived all of Earth's mass extinctions and still survive today in the form of the nautilus, cuttle fish and the like. So, I thought, what a good symbol for the resistance. An ammonite, or my version of one. It represents everything fascists hate... science, education (I put in a little education symbol in the center of the ammonite swirl), critters, etc.

I originally was going to use a cuttle fish to represent the tentacles part of the image and quickly changed my mind on that. I had recently saw a Ray Harryhausen exhibit, so I used the nautilus model from the movie The Mysterious Island, complete with the red eye. So, help me God, it had red eyes! 

And I made stickers. I will put them up on my website very soon, but you can always contact me directly, if interested. And who wouldn't be interested in an ammonite sticker?

Michael Madsen

 

9x12

ink on bristol board

Michael Madsen has left us. I always enjoyed his roles. He had a way that no other actor (at least, for me) had in making one think that, yeah, that's an asshole right there, but maybe, just maybe, there is something good in there, something relatable and likable. I always thought that his characters were struggling with decency, but just couldn't pull out of the quagmire. Well, maybe not Mr. Blonde. He embraced the cruelty.

Above is a drawing that I did of Madsen as Mr. Blonde back in 2013. I was experimenting with blank eyes during this time. This one sold a few years ago and the woman who bought loved the pose. Whew.