Sketching in the time of Corona
COVID-19 has brought society to a screeching halt. Unless you’re on Zoom.
On March 16th, the Bay Area shut down. The 14-day shelter-in-place evolved into an extended stay-at-home order. It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever experienced.
Only essential errands. Only critical business. All work from home. All classes done online. Take out and delivery required. Everything closed. All events cancelled. All travel plans stopped.
New words emerged overnight: social distancing; flatten the curve; transmission; vector; surge.
And in the gap, remote meetings, online happy hours and video-conference classes blossomed like dandelions. People doing a YouTube kitchen dance party because there’s no gym to go to. Museums challenging people to create replicas of famous paintings from everyday items. Sketching groups hosting free drawing workshops on Instagram, Facebook Live and any other platform available.
Like everyone else, I was whirled into the Zoomosphere with hours spent interacting from my square in the Brady-Bunch view. I admit this creates dark thoughts and much stress.
My coping mechanism is always sketching. And yet I couldn’t sketch. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. But…I needed to practice sketching people. (I always need to practice sketching people.) So #zoomsketches were born.
The process is simple:
- Be on zoom with people
- Take a few screenshots
- Sketch them after
- Color them in
- Post & share
The colors are coded by the type of session: Blue is work+job; Green is creative+making; Purple is social+service.
#zoomsketch collection
Stay tuned. We’ll get through this together.
