Drop in to this free 2 day sketching studio and practise your craft, as always, we are all inclusive and this is suitable for all levels and abilities.
Relive Melbourne’s golden age, when Victoria became a separate colony, gold was discovered, bushrangers roamed and explorers launched bold expeditions into the Australian interior.
These dramatic transformations were captured in stunning paintings, sketches and drawings by William Strutt (1825–1915), whose work encompasses the brutal fury of the Australian landscape and the human drama of life in the mid-19th century. In collaboration with,Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School Melbournethese images and characters will be bought to life for your inside of Strutt’s Sketching Studio.
Art tools, boards, a selection of pencils and drawing paper will be provided. You are welcome to bring your own personal sketchbook, but please note that ink and paint are not permitted in the studio.
On Friday 23 Sept: practise portraiture and still-life with 40-minute live model sit times (20-minute poses).
On Saturday 24 Sept: contribute to a giant historical drawing, capturing models in authentic bushranger costumes, with landscape elements and a life-size model horse.
During your day, visit Heroes and villains: Strutt’s Australia and see examples of William Strutt’s masterful portaiture, preparatory sketches and large-scale historical paintings.
Booty, butts, big butts, fat-bottomed girls, junk in the trunk, parody of the patootie!
Dr Sketchy’s returned to Melbourne with a sold out session last month.
So how do we follow that up?!
With a whole lotta booty!
Sunday 14 August at BeinArt Gallery, Miss Jane Doe and the one and only Frankie Valentine bring the booty…
BABY GOT BACK The Accolade to ASS!
Frankie Valentine and Vesper White created Baby Got Back as a celebration of everything ASS; a tribute to toosh, a dedication to derriere!
A dance party for fellow backside worshippers to show off the junk in their trunk, and revel in stage performances of the best booty dancers from the east coast of Australia.
And at Dr Sketchy’s we are going to get to continue the worship and draw some of the best butts in town.
WHEN Sunday 14 August 5pm – 7pm.
Doors at 4.45pm
WHERE beinArt Gallery 1 Sparta Place Brunswick
TICKETS HERE ***** Please note art monkeys we have REDUCED the capacity to make sure everyone is comfy! This will mean tickets will sell sooner! *****
Like Kurt Vonnegut said “practising an art, no matter how well or how badly is a way to make your soul grow”. Check out previous sessions from The Toff in Town at our Vimeo page https://vimeo.com/user34117357
I hope 2015 is already brimming with potential and success, we here at Dr Sketchy’s are as passionate as ever to reignite or just keep on stokin’ your creative fires.
We believe in drawing, we believe that just because we grew up doesn’t mean we should stop having fun with pencils and paper as often as possible.
I bet some of you sit in front of a piano, or even pick up a guitar, ukelele or even a recorder sometimes. Me, I play the triangle. How bout just picking up a pencil and making a picture though?
Drawing helps us to think, feel good and have fun. It can be tough to sit alone and think up something to just draw (excluding your day job doodling!) so Dr Sketchy’s works at bringing together the wonderful talent that our great city has to put them smack in front of you – you’re very own Monthly Melbourne Muses!
I’m very excited to announce that our muse to herald the start of our 2015 season is the hilarious heartbreaker, Honey B Goode.
It’s our 2015 season launch!
We’re back and fired up to bring you the very loveliest, funniest, charming and most talented performers Melbourne’s shiney dirty underground has to offer. We blast into 2015 with the hilarious heartbreaker, Honey B. Goode.
Known as the queen of quirk, Honey has forged a reputation as an original, charismatic and surprising performer. Synthesising her training in modern and classical dance, physical theatre and the dramatic arts, this chameleon-like ecdysiast delights in pushing the boundaries of burlesque. With performances ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, this dazzling dame only asks that you expect the unexpected.
Be good, and if you can’t be good
Be good at being bad like
Every girl should, honey be good
WHEN: Sunday 22 February
WHERE: The Toff in Town lvl 2 Curtain House, 252 Swanston St
8 years art monkeys! Every.damn.month. for 8 years!
Plus all the glorious festivals and pop-ups like that time Sylvia Ji came out and we invaded Outre Gallery Dios de le muerte style, or the time we took over Rites of Passage Tattoo festival, and of course when Kevin Jackson and Vivienne Wong from The Australian Ballet joined us for Midsumma..
Mel went to New York after a big crowd funding campaign got her a ticket to speak at the 2nd International SketchyCon and year after year we return to The Famous Spiegeltent.
How on earth do we say Happy Birthday to ourselves?
On Sunday 29 June we have a party. Need one helluva model to bring the partay. I think we’ve done it too. Our objet d’art is Music Maker/Heart Breaker, TANZER .
“If I created a new depravity I would be a priestess, while my imitators would founder, after my reign, in abominable filth…”
Crackling melodrama, cinematic love stories and big ass beats – Tanzer is a pop diva translating film noir nostalgia into bombastic modern love anthems. Blinged-out like a female Frank N’ Furter with the haughty glare and big hair of a 60s film siren, this commanding chanteuse spins tales of OTT love affairs and fabulous heartbreak to a swelling, thumping soundscape. It’s the soundtrack to your most devastating and delicious passion.
See you all SUNDAY 29 JUNE at The Toff in Town. Doors open 3.30pm. Session 4.00pm – 6.00pm
Below is a little love story on how we came to be.
Part art, part cabaret, all fun.
Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School is the little Brooklyn event that became a movement.
Founded in 2005 by New York illustrator Molly Crabapple, Dr. Sketchy’s went viral after local tattooist and illustrator Melanie Knight made plans with Molly from her apartment in New York to bring Dr. Sketchy’s to Melbourne becoming the world’s premier alternative drawing movement.
There are now over 150 branches in cities around the globe.
Melbourne is now the longest running session in the world, celebrating 8 years this June, appearing on the last Sunday of every month at The Toff in Town located in the vertical laneway that is Curtain House.
Recent years has seen a formidable array of performers hit the Dr. Sketchy stage. In keeping with our ethos of providing an eclectic and exiting display of the country’s most unique and inspiring performers we greeted Tim Rogers of You am I, dancers of The Australian Ballet, a now traditional run of summer sessions in The Famous Spiegeltent hosting the talents of Opera star Ali McGregor with globetrotting burlesque star Gypsy Wood, cabaret chantuese Simoncee Page Jones and star of BRIEFS – all male vaudeville, The King of Boylesque Mark “Captain Kidd’ Winmill.
Dr Sketchy’s has been a boon to the art scene since its inception, promoting creativity and community in every city that runs one. Providing a space for people of all abilities to draw the flourishing alternative scenes that might otherwise be inaccessible to the lone artist.
Harxest Mag describes the event as “a room full of friendly people, an appreciation for art, beautiful models, unreal costumes and a truck load of fun times”.
We farewell 2013 with The Superstar of the Sideshow, Lilikoi Kaos. Lilikoi created a storm of graphite with the 100 plus audience sketching her at our Famous Spiegeltent session in 2012 with the reigning King of Boylesque, Captain Kidd. See that photo in the header bar just up there?… yeah, that’s LILIKOI!!!!!!
After travelling the world with the force that is Moira Finucane and Glory Box, Lilikoi returns to wreck havoc and cause Kaos on our sketch pads.
Eclectic, erotic, odd, fiesty, feminine. A female Houdini, with acrobatic precision in all her moves.
Lilikoi Kaos a second-generation contemporary circus performer grew up travelling the world as part of an international community of innovative artists, she works across circus, sideshow, physical theatre, comedy, and burlesque and filters it all through the prism of her own own edgy philosophy of life.
…Lilikoi Kaos thrilled audiences with a hula hoop act that was sheer skill, and a wink that would make any man (or woman) fall in love….
Dr. Sketchy’s is for everyone, no previous artistic ability required. The world’s premier alternative drawing movement.
Harzest Mag describes the event as “a room full of friendly people, an appreciation for art, beautiful models, unreal costumes and a truck load of fun times”.
Tickets: $18.00 +BF PURCHASE HERE or on the door
Time: 4.00am-6.00pm (Doors 3.30pm)
When: Sunday 1 December
Where: The Toff in Town, 2/252 Swanston St Melbourne
Part art, part cabaret, all fun. Melbourne’s original burlesque life drawing event.
This month we lay out the red carpet and sound the trumpets for Australia’s reigning Queen of burlesque, The Strawberry Siren. The Strawberry Siren has been dazzling Burlesque audiences worldwide for the last 6 years drawing on her 18 year background in Circus, Theatre and Dance to provide a fresh and fancy take on Burlesque that she’s dubbed Cirlesque.
Not only a Burlesque Queen Downunder, Strawberry has recently been setting the northern hemisphere on fire, sizzling and scorching her way through the London BurlesqueFest, Los Angeles, Kansas, Vancouver and New Orleans Burlesque Festivals!
“The Strawberry Siren is the Tarantino of Burlesque…. Sexy and dangerous!”
King Henry the Eighth, to six wives he was wedded. One died, one survived, two divorced, two beheaded.
Queen Strawberry will be paying homage to the Wives of King VIII with the most spectauclar of tudor inspired outfits. Join us as we kill off these woman with our mighty pencils!
Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art Schools has been a boon to the art scene since its inception, promoting creativity and community in every city that runs one. Providing a space for people to draw the flourishing alternative scenes that might otherwise be inaccessible to the lone artist, presenting hilarious and exciting performers as your unique muses.
Dr. Sketchy’s is for everyone, no previous artistic ability required. The world’s premier alternative drawing movement.
Harzest Mag describes the event as “a room full of friendly people, an appreciation for art, beautiful models, unreal costumes and a truck load of fun times”.
Tickets: $18.00 +BF / $18.00 on the door Time: 4.00am-6.00pm (Doors 3.30pm) When: Sunday 27 October 2013 Where: The Toff in Town, 2/252 Swanston St Melbourne VIC 3000, Melbourne
Dr Sketchy’s brings you the purrrfect sex kitten for your sketching pleasures this month.
A tantalising blend of old time glamour puss with 60’s sex kitten please welcome the pelvis thrusting, hip shaking, bump and grind of traditional tease, Melbourne’s Lady Provocateur, L’amour!
L’amour brings a wealth of experience and variety to the stage. A seasoned performance artist spanning vaudeville and contortaion through to the most risqué of pole routines and all that shimmers and shimmeys in between. A natural talent for blending the naughty with nice, this femme fatale will trap you with her feline charms.
After a recent hiatus L’amour has exploded back onto the East Coast scene performing most recently at the Australian Burlesque festival.
Be prepared for a lot of glitter, a lot of hair, and a lot of skin. Get ready for L’amour…
DJ The Knave spins the tunes to keep things funky throughout the evening and of course, The Toff has one of Melbourne best stocked bars to keep your creative spirits well lubricated!
When: Sunday June 24 Doors open 4.00pm Session runs 4.30 to 6.30pm
