An Illustrated Affair

Fresh from a session with my Advanced Figure Drawing class today. It was a beautiful morning and and when the model (Erin, who is very good) did not appear I concluded that we had little choice than to make it a field day. Right after we got the drawing benches put back Erin appeared. So we sent everybody outside anyway, and did a clothed session with Erin in the sculpture garden. It was a delightful interlude.

Groups of visiting students and their parents passing through with regularity, each led by a tour guide walking backwards (a Wash U thing). These small herds milled about waiting for an opportunity to take photos in front of (or leaning against) large wooden characters spelling out #WASHU’27 . Each group told a variation on the same story: eager , coltish prospective students in lanyards and sportswear, bounding about or hanging back; variously doting, distracted, or engaged parents; the ever rear-facing institutional enthuisast. Campus regulars passing through; somebody on a riding mower down the way.

These tableaux went by quickly. I got talking about how you have to adapt to get a story down in minimal time, sometimes in seconds. That got me thinking about the experience described below. So I’m dusting off this post for a new audience. In conversation this morning I speculated that I had done this in 2015, but now that I have gone back to check—egads!—it was 2012, more than a decade ago! Yikes. Today is April 10, 2023. The story below was first posted on September 9, 2012.

Five weeks ago I traveled to the Bay Area to attend the wedding of a former student. Illustrator Mike Hirshon married Robin Meyer, a linguist who recently won a Fulbright to Holland. The link above highlights Mike's design work for the affair, which was quite comprehensive. By now they will have made their way to Amsterdam for the coming year. I'm already looking forward to Mike's reportage drawing from that very picturesque city.

Insert: Mike graduated from SVA's Illustration as Visual Essay program in 2015. He did in fact, do some beautiful work in Amsterdam, which can be seen on his site: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Here's his SVA Thesis, which is a wonderful project: Lost at Home. Mike and Robin lived in Madison, Wisconsin before moving to Salt Lake City , where Mike is now an assistant professor of art. He leads their illustration program. (Perfectly randomly Mike and I were invited to be a show together at SUNY Brockport in the Fall of 2021. Neither of us traveled to see it.)

Mike and Robin invited me to the wedding. Not only that, they asked me to draw it. Like a wedding photographer, but a more oblique one, with a pencil. When they first asked me, more than a year ago, it seemed–to my relief–that my schedule would not permit it. But when it became possible, I consented, if more nervously than I let on. I agreed for several reasons, chief among them my fondness for Mike. But partly I decided to do it as a challenge. So, you think you can draw? Well try this.

It was a full day, to say the least. I reasoned, correctly, that the earlier I got there the more time I'd have to scope the place out, plus I would be able to make some preliminary drawings to warm up. I drew flowers being prepared, an entryway, and a handful of other things, including this assemblage of stuff.

Once the photographer(s) arrived I had a moving tableau to work from.

These drawings are the fastest ones I made that day, but some of my favorites, too.

No time to edit. A stout photographer. Practically instinctive responses.

Here I had a very quick shot at the bridesmaids. This was more strategic: draw legs and the spaces between them, plus get the dress-mass in one shot. If I'd had even another minute, I could have roughed in better heads. Not to be.

Mike's mother popped in very early to greet me. She whispered confidentially, If you draw me, make me younger and trim off about ten pounds. Unnecessary, of course. She has a great smile and a distinctive carriage, and when I got a brief opening during photographs, I took it. She was probably mortified by this drawing, but it seems to me that something of her spirit comes through it.

Then, a few set pieces. The signing of the ketubah–the marriage contract–something I had never witnessed. (Mike designed it; it's a lovely object.)

A sketch of the setting: the Outdoor Art Club, in Mill Valley, California. As the bar is being set up in the foreground. When we scanned these images–which are plain old No. 2 pencils on sketchbook spreads–we pumped the contrast a little. It works on the line drawings, but the tonal passages collapse some. Oh well.

The ceremony itself. I planned to make a drawing here that I'd work up later as a gouache painting. Here's the pencil, complete with notes to myself about color. It looks like a mess, but it captured the necessary information. Below it, the gouache. Painted right on top of the pencil drawing, in the book.

Drawings like this compress time. I started the picture on the left, with the bridesmaids. When the other participants processed, the party closed in on itself. As the ceremony unfolded, the bridesmaids turned to face the action, and thus would not have been in these positions at the moment of the blessing captured on the right. Aspects of this temporal compression run all through the image.

I love the shapes of the hairdos and the dresses (See detail at the top of this post.)

Finally, two scenes from the reception. A priceless moment, of two little girls dancing in front of a jazz combo.

A detail.

And chatting around the table. The woman on the left was a participant; a guest; the rabbi.

All told I made over 20 drawings that day.

When asked a few weeks before, I said I'd prefer to eat dinner with the vendors, not the guests. I supped with the photographers and the musicians. Despite my familiarity with the bride and groom (and as the day wore on, with their families, at least a little) I was there to practice my craft. Just like the others at my table. Pass the fish, please.

The Meyers put on a terrific event. Here they are with their daughter, earlier in the day. The only principal figure I failed to capture was Mr. Hirshon, Mike's dad, who kept moving out of view just as I turned to him. Next time!

Near the end, as the post-dinner dancing began, I hit my wall. As soon as my digestive system began to process the meal I'd just consumed, it became very clear that there would be no more drawing. I thanked my hosts and said farewell, then plopped my bag in the rental and drove off across the bay to Walnut Creek. Where I checked into a Motel 6 and collapsed. Needless to say, I slept well.

The next day I spent a very pleasant interlude with an old friend, then flew back to St. Louis.

Several weeks later I shipped the book off to the newlyweds, with whom it will stay for many happy years. Bon voyage, Robin and Mike!