Draw by Night is forking over all the sketches and drawings, masterpieces and doodles made on May 12th to us!

Well, not exactly to us, but Jordan and I will be the safe-keepers of them until our next *big* Arthritis Society Fundraiser – Rock Out With Your Socks Out!

(This is my second ever photoshop attempt. I'm more proud than a mom, er, even if you can't read it, I guess the mom equation works well, then).

At this event we will divide all art sales between The Arthritis Society and Draw by Night. Win-win-win, because if you bid $5 or more you may get to take home an original from a Vancouver artist who will rock the white right off of that bare wall of yours.

Anyone can come and draw too! That party puts the pen to the paper on May 12th, 6pm -9pm at the VFS Cafe, 390 W Hastings.

And of course, anyone can come rock out at the sock hop too. Even with your shoes on! You can find ‘Rock Out With Your Socks Out’ dance & auction info here.

And one last thing about tomorrow night, DJ Noble -all the way from Norway- has created a specific ‘Meat Legs’ themed song list.  You won’t know what got into that pen you’re holding until you hear the music!

Owww!

(Can ‘Meat Legs’ howl?)

They sure as heck can!

Local Vancouver artist Myron Campbell has whipped up some furry magic with his monthy drawing parties: Draw by Night.

The theme for March?

Civil Monsters.

And you know what? There are quite a few polite and conscientious monsters out there.

Grover, Harry from Harry and the Henderson’s, Sulley from Monster’s Inc. er, after meeting Boo, of course. Civil monsters that will not only help a kid cross the street but teach the alphabet, make breakfast and heck even save your life.

So, I took a shot at drawing one of my favourite monsters growing up:

That is my friend Mr. Aloysius Snuffleupagus or as you, I and Big Bird know him: Snuffy.

The Vancouver Film School Cafe is already a pretty cool space to draw in but Myron Campbell has a way of transforming it to make it even more inclusive and fun. He showed the Hilarious House of Frightenstein, an 80’s-child Saturday morning classic. Featuring maybe my most favourite monster – The Wolfman- that disco dancing werewolf. (I would front load “funky” to the wolfman’s “civil” because he was only polite on the psychedelic dance floor, hooowl!)

But, back to the VFS Cafe, tables were pushed together and covered with long rolls of paper. There were clusters of drawing utensils from pens, pencils, markers to sharpie paint markers. You could draw by yourself or with your neighbour and even the person sitting across from you. Lots of people switched seats to draw too.

There were so many different takes on civil monsters that if you didn’t have fun drawing one yourself (as if!!) you had a lot of fun looking at everyone elses’.

Here’s a few shots.. let the monstrous civility begin…

The next Draw by Night is at the Diane Farris Gallery as a part of Twitter/Art + Social Media,”a juried exhibition of work by artists using social media for inspiration, production and presentation of their work.”

Heck yah to Myron Campbell and collaborators!

Check out Draw by Night’s page for details on how you can be part of it. There will be open spaces for drawers of all ilks, even those with wavy Aloysius Snuffleupagus’s up their sleeves.

A little while ago I got to try out Tangible Interaction’s Digital Graffiti Wall as a part of a Draw by Night event.

And I blab all about it on tomorrow’s 98th edition of Spark.

I love this show.

I love Draw-by-Night.

And turns out I love watching people use the Digital Graffiti Wall.

I won’t give too much away until later but you can watch how pretty cool and well, just how pretty it is here.

Scrooged was released November 23, 1988. Image copied from IMDb. I think this picture should be as ubiquitous as Santa.

With the holidays upon us like Bill Murray’s TV-producer-wrath in Scrooged, things can feel a little unreal, hyper-real and maybe even surreal.

Whether it’s getting bonked in the head with a set piece or feeling the need to visit the mall after you finished your shift working in one, this season can test your strength of character.

Will you eat the entire care package of Aunt Betty’s peanutbutter balls while watching the latest episode of CBC’s Being Erica? Maybe. Will you smile at the stranger who cut you off in traffic, er, foot traffic, trying to catch a packed bus home? Absolutely.

Because what is needed now more than ever is a little grace and a whole lot of irreverence in the face of all the holiday heightened expectations. Who needs to rush when you’re not expecting (to do) anything?

Ah, expectations, I’ve had a few.

Except at the latest Draw-by-Night event.

This time around, Draw-by-Night felt like I tossed my bus pass in the air as though it were confetti and hit the city streets in my sneakers for the first time.  Look at all the lights!  The strange store front windows!  All the band posters at each intersection!

Draw-by-Night founder Myron Campbell picked the theme “Corpse” based on the collaborative drawings by the surrealists in the 20’s, or Exquisite Corpse. We took a sheet of blank paper, folded it in three and drew a head or feet.

Photo taken during Draw-by-Night at the Vancouver Film School Cafe. Check out the eyes!

Then we passed our folded sheet  of paper with the starting point for a torso to the next person who couldn’t see what we drew. Then they drew a torso and did the same thing.  When we had what we called  ”a reveal” ready, we all put down our markers to see what we came up with. Here’s a few:

The irreverence was fun and some of the pictures really made us take pause- there was some good stuff in not knowing what the heck comes next!

And to my delight, some really really silly stuff too.

I spoke with Myron Campbell about the event and why passing the paper works so well.