Last month I attended the annual UC Davis Academic Advising Conference here on campus. It is part of my day-job, but on this occasion I was invited to be the official sketcher of the event as well. Two birds, one Pete. I would be drawing everything anyway, but now I get an official excuse and it saves my department some money in registration. It’s also an opportunity to draw people. Five-minute sketches of people in fact – a good thing to practice. Hey if you are interested in five-minute people sketching there is a book coming out all about that later this year (hint, it’s why I have been so busy the past few months). Back to the UCDAAC though, it was a day long event, a series of workshops and talks, tent-poled around the keynote speech of David Spight, president of NACADA (the National Academic Advising Association). It was St.Patrick’s Day so a lot of people wore green.

Here is David, above, and below are two of the organizing forces, Brett McFarlane of UC Davis and Elizabeth Dudley, also of UC Davis, also a former co-worker in my office. Below them there, Sharon Knox of UC Davis, and Alejandra Garibay, also a former co-worker in my office.

The thing with five-minute people sketches is that they don’t have to be entirely accurate, but it’s a good idea to try and get the sense of people. However, thinking about it, talking about it, and then actually doing it are different things – I always feel a little hesitant when sketching people, not wanting to take too many risks, probably for fear of that “you’ve drawn me as a massive scribble” “it looks nothing like me” “can you make me look younger” reaction. But my favourite ones are the much looser, less inhibited sketches. It can take you a few people sketches to get into your groove, so keep them quick and keep them coming. I enjoyed myself sketching people on this day, so here are a few more.

Here are a couple where I kept the linework in these workshop presenters fairly basic, but it looked like them so it still served its purpose. In the second I had to look over my shoulder to sketch the attendees, and loosened up the lines a lot more. The session was called “What color is your cape?” and had a superhero theme. We each had to say who our favourite superhero was (quite a lot of “Batman”, “Wonder Woman”, “My Mom”). One woman beat me to the one I was going to say, Ms Marvel (Kamala Khan) who I think is absolutely awesome. I gave her a mention too but also went with Captain America because I happened to be wearing Captain America socks (as you do). I wanted to say Magneto of course but he might not have been the model of a good adviser they were looking for, what with his whole “Master of Magnetism, Homo Superior” stuff. It was a fun session though.

This was an interesting session, about Cultural Capital, there was some good discussion and I learned a lot. I enjoyed it most though because I had an opportunity to sketch the lady with bright blue hair, and I had a nice shade of W&N watercolor to use, I think it was the Antwerp Blue. I like sketching that large ovular table as well, a challenge in perspective sketching.

Here is David Spight again, giving a Q&A after his keynote.

And the final session of the day before the closing speakers, this was a session devoted to “wellness through art” (above), whereby people cut pictures out of magazines and made big collages. They were mostly full of the typical “peace”, “love”, beach”, “growth” type phrases and images, all trying to convey a certain wellness and spiritual mindset – except for that made by Alejandra, who made a collage of people in the magazines she found attractive, which was in my opinion easily the most fun one. It was a pretty calming session, they played classical music (the instructor explained why, something to do with increasing brainpower, and I understand that, I listen to certain bands sometimes to make me feel clever). One of the pieces they played I recognized straight away as the theme song to the BBC TV show “The Little Silver Trumpet” from the early 1980s, a TV show which I was actually a cast member of, at the tender age of four. If ever you should come across it, I am pretty instantly recognizable as a scruffy red-head kid in the main family of red-heads (my “mum” was Patsy Byrne, aka Nursie from Blackadder, and my “Dad” was the brilliant but scary Ron Pember), and in one scene I actually remember filming I was drawing, showing the other kids how to draw stuff, and holding my pen in that distinct way, all those years ago. That’s what I was thinking of when that music came on. I enjoyed this sketch most of all, the composition of the scene and the different directions people were sat in. It probably reminded everyone of kindergarten.

Check out information about the day at the UCDAAC Website.