[Insider 42] Some beautiful things for dark and terrible times.
and dates for upcoming workshop sessions.
Dear Insider,
It is a dark and terrible world. I have nothing to offer that will change that. Nothing to battle this time in which we find ourselves alive.
If I could, would I choose to be born in another time period? Probably not. Onward then to the only thing I can offer - some beautiful lines of ink.
The SneakyArt Post is a publication about finding the beautiful things of our world … before they vanish forever.
In this special Sunday edition going out to Insiders and free readers, find some beautiful things for these terrible times.
📚 Free Libraries of Vancouver
Why is a city? When is a cafe? Who is a skyscraper?
Longtime readers know these questions well. I have introduced them in previous posts and discussed possible answers with guests on the SneakyArt Podcast.
A city is a thing of people. And sometimes I find something in the city that subtly reminds me of that beautiful fact.
One such thing is a free library, tucked into a bush, resting against a tree, or embedded into a stone wall.
A free library is a beautiful thing of people. That even one exists, that even one person takes care of it, that even other person finds in it something of value. No one else could do this. Only people.
I find them all over Vancouver.
The first free library I found this week was close to Queen Elizabeth Park, in the front yard of someone’s home. Next to it was also a free little art gallery. I left a zine inside the art gallery.
Afterward, I posted about this on r/vancouver, and a redditor went down to pick it up within a couple of hours. Check out their reddit post!
This practice of giving away my work - known as art abandonment - is part of my creative resolutions this year. It is an exercise in emancipation. To cast my work into the infinite universe sets me - the artist - free. It lets me become the master of my own destiny. It is also my answer to the recently-popular, abominable concept of artificial scarcity.
The second free library I found had put out a couple of small benches for readers. Or, I imagine, for anyone that needs a bit of rest and relaxation. Offering shelter is, after all, a thing that libraries do.
And therefore by extension - a thing that people do for other people.
The little table even had a chessboard pattern on it.
The following message is part of my summer fundraising drive to pay the bills and keep SneakyArt independent.
Dear reader, I will spend all the sunny hours next week hunting down more free libraries in my neighbourhood. In gratitude for their existence, I will leave drawings inside them for strangers to find.
This year I am giving away original drawings, books, prints, and zines.
Besides leaving them in public places, I am also sending my work to readers around the world. And first among those readers are SneakyArt Insiders!
Become a SneakyArt Insider to support my work for less than $1 per post.
💻 Zoom Event in 3 hours
The SneakyArt of June hangout begins today at 9 am Pacific Time.
During the session, I will show the latest pages of my sketchbook, answer your questions, and demo my drawing style.
Seats are FREE but limited. Only a few more left to grab!
✍🏼 Zoom Drawing workshop next week
Summer is here and I am ready to resume my Zoom-based people-drawing workshops!
The workshop is a 2-hour single session of near-continuous drawing. I will demonstrate how I draw people and run through exercises, hacks, and best practices accumulated over five years of drawing from life. More details below.
This event is FREE for SneakyArt Insiders. If you are a SneakyArt Insider, scroll to the bottom of this post for the discount code.
All other readers may choose to pay -
(1) $40, for just the workshop, or
(2) $50, to become an Insider (please pick the annual subscription) and get this workshop for free.
