Monthly Archives: March 2020

Live-drawing the Live Stream of Pansy’s House of Presents – whoa!

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That was delirious!!

Amazing performances by beloved Berlin queers and queens as they quarantine all over town! Pansy, hostess of Pansy’s House of Presents, Berlin’s incredibly popular drag show, and Gieza Poke, hostess of pre-show The Poke House, went live on Twitch last night. Above, marvelous performer Lola Rose showed the empty street her hot pink secret self in a fabulous number recorded earlier in the day.

Below, my first-ever drawing from a livestream, a very bad drawing of Gieza Poke!

Gieza Poke by Suzanne Forbes March 24 2020Drawing from the screen is completely and entirely different from drawing from life.

I have drawn Gieza on three other occasions and never created such a mess.

Pansys House of Presents March 24 2020 by Suzanne ForbesHostess Pansy had wonderful makeup and brought adorable rescue greyhound Tina (“like Tina Turner”) on for a cameo.

I am shocked by how little this drawing looks like her. I have also drawn Pansy before, damn well.

HP Loveshaft for Pansys House of Presents March 24 2020 Suzanne ForbesHP Loveshaft did an incredible and sexy number to “Dancing With Myself” from their hallway.

I made a terrible drawing of this gorgeous drag king! Even though I have drawn them in the past.

Fifi Fantome for Pansys House of Presents March 24 2020 by Suzanne ForbesI do kind of like the drawing I made of Fifi Fantôme dancing on her rooftop!

And I like the one of Lola, as loose and messy as it is. If my Patrons enjoy these goofy drawings, I’ll keep trying every week.

Pansy is doing an incredible thing working to livestream the previously scheduled performances every Tuesday.

She is hoping to raise money to pay the performers, pay beloved queer clubhouse Monster Ronsons the rent she would have paid them, and keep performers’ spirits up.

Gieza’s loving, sassy humor and Pansy’s indomitable message of inclusion, diversity, solidarity and social justice were so revitalizing to me yesterday. The comments in the chat were hilarious too!

You can watch these wild livestreams for free on Twitch (so easy to set up an account) and also easily tip the performers or pay the regular ten euro entry fee if you can.

Gieza’s twitch is here and Pansy’s is here.

You can pre-order merch, including the super popular Drag Saves Lives shirts and totes, here.

I am so grateful to my Patrons on Patreon, whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me work safely at home.

As usual these drawings are licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) for all to share and enjoy!

In addition, I release the copyright on each drawing to the performer shown and they may use the drawings for their own profit and pleeeasssure in any way they choose.

 

Black and white illustrations, from when I kind of had a style thing going on?

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Graduate Drawing 2 for Tom Garrettt Illustration Class Fall 1990 Rachel KetchumIt’s hard to believe I could draw this confidently back then.

I would love to be able to make this kind of black and white drawing, made for Tom Garrett’s Illustration class at MCAD in 1990 or 1991, today.

Graduate Drawing 1 for Tom Garrettt Illustration Class Fall 1990 Rachel KetchumTom would give us an assignment and we’d do sketches and comps and finals, like real professional illustrators.

Somehow the repetition, and his charm as a teacher, let us cut loose. The final is the top one, the one above is the comp. And yes, this assignment was something like “Boomers vs Gen X”! Abandoned House Drawing 1 for Tom Garrettt Illustration Class Fall 1990 Rachel Ketchum

Look at this great horse I drew!

I still kinda wish I’d had a reason to put my skill at drawing horses to use at some point in my career.

Abandoned House Drawing 2 for Tom Garrettt Illustration Class Fall 1990 Rachel Ketchum
White inks or paints can react with the pigment in black pens to create blue or purple tones.

It happened with this long ago mixed media illustration, and some drawings of boylesquers I did here in Berlin a couple years ago. It’s hard to predict; it shouldn’t happen with quality materials, but it still does sometimes.

Tool Drawing with lace and smoke for Tom Garrettt Illustration Class Fall 1990 Rachel KetchumHow about this still life with a collaged real lace shadow?

What fun! The dark tones across are actual smoke – I still smoked cigarettes then, and I used matches or a candle to leave carbon on the board.

Tool Drawing with glue resist for Tom Garrettt Illustration Class Fall 1990 Rachel Ketchum aka Suzanne ForbesThis one used plain white glue as a resist!

Then I washed over it with black acrylic paint. The glue areas remained white (although you can see the pencil drawing underneath). This is a great technique for kids, you can use carboard (so it won’t warp under watered-down paint) and kids’ tempera paint. Just make sure to let the white glue dry for at least a couple hours first!

Ralph Steadman style pliers for Tom Garrettt Illustration Class Fall 1990 Rachel KetchumAnd I found this ridiculous one in the style of Ralph Steadman, too!

None of these pieces have ever been photographed; no modern media record of them existed – if we had a fire or flood they would just be gone forever. And of course, I am the only person who knows when they were made and why, the story of the pictures.

As a highly-vulnerable person with asthma and auto immune illness, it seems more important than ever to document my life’s work. Not morbid, just pragmatic!

I am so grateful to my Patrons on Patreon, whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me to take time to document my art archives.