When New York gets hit by blistering nor’easters and inches of snowfall (that’s only pretty until you have to shovel it off the sidewalk), the New York City Urban Sketchers holds an annual, well-attended event in early February: the Portrait Party. But if the kind of party you’re expecting is Prohibition-era boozin’…nope, sorry, this ain’t it. But it is a marathon of portrait sketching.
Since its inaugural session six years ago, it’s been held in a few different venues as its attendees grow in ever greater number. In the Before Times, the group would be subdivided into smaller bands, and each person, bedazzled with their preferred bits of fluff and costume, takes ten minutes to pose for everyone else. Ten torturous minutes for the sitter, ten hurried nanoseconds for the artist.
At the end of the day, each portrait is placed on the floor, organized by row per sitter, to see how every pair of eyes drew what they saw in each face.
This year, the ticketed event was held over Zoom, with each breakout room holding five to seven people, each taking turns at sustained stillness, in their preferred bits of fluff and costume. The day contained four timed sessions, and while we did not see a full grid of everyone’s portraits, it was a day of challenge, a few achy limbs, and a fun winter activity in these After Times.
In no particular order, here are the faces I had the privilege to draw. (Clicking each face will open a larger version in a new window/tab of your browser.)
