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Character Sketches 2018 was so popular, we've extended the program into 2019 and expanded the months the program is available, January 9th, through October.
Character Sketches is intended for adults who wish to develop or hone their drawing / sketching skills. High school aged students may attend with parental permission.
Unless unforeseen circumstances arise, Character Sketches will feature live, costumed models to draw. It will not feature undraped images or models. However, models will be appropriately costumed (i.e., Tarzan in a loin cloth).
Character Sketches format:
3 Five-minute sketches
1 Forty-five minute sketch.
Artists attending Character Sketches are responsible for damage to floor coverings or furnishings. Use drop cloths as necessary.
Character Sketches is not a “class." No teacher or mentor is present.
We ask (not require) that you permit us to photograph one or more of your sketches to use as advertisement for future sessions, and to send to the model as a thank you.
Participants must bring their own materials.
January 9: Scout / To Kill a Mockingbird. Model: Reese Burton. |
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January 16: Santiago is a Cuban fisherman who has had an extended run of bad luck. Despite his expertise, he has been unable to catch a fish for eighty-four days. He is humble, yet exhibits a justified pride in his abilities. Model: Jim Shurtleff. |
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January 23: Nell Trelawney / Treasure Mountain. Nell is one of the girls from back home who the Sackett's run into during their western adventures. Model: Stephanie Hunter |
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January 30: Bob Cratchit / A Christmas Carol. Cratchit works for 15 shillings a week at a rate of three pence ("thruppence") an hour for 60 hours per week. In terms of 2015 purchasing power, this would be approximately £63.00 or about $94 US per week. Model: Craig Isom |
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February 6: Bellatrix Lestrange / Harry Potter series. One crazy witch. Her years in Azkaban Prison seem to have only strengthened her love for Voldemort and his mission, and she's his most fervent, loyal follower. All she ever thinks about is Voldemort's success. She's unafraid to be cruel – in fact, she loves it. To make things worse, not only is Bellatrix criminally insane, she's also arrogant as all get-out; her mockery is almost as bad as her malice. Model: Kira Greener |
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February 13: Westley and Buttercup / The Princess Bride. Just in time for Valentine’s Day! Westley is Buttercup’s beloved “farm boy” who, after leaving to seek his fortune returns to save Buttercup from all that threatens her. Feisty, tomboyish Buttercup, the most beautiful woman in the world, loves Westley and her horse. Models: Garett and Kyra Ruesch |
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February 20: Siren / The Odyssey. The Sirens are mythical creatures. They lure men to their island with their music and voices, never to return to their families and homes. In the Odyssey, the Sirens were briefly encountered by Odysseus and his men. When they were drawing near, Odysseus used Circe's advice of how to avoid being drawn in by them and plugged his men's ears with wax; he was also tied to his ship in order to stay with them. To the fortune of Odysseus and his crew, all passed with complete survival. Model: Lainee Mathews |
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February 27: Quasimodo / The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Born deaf, with a hunched back and a wart covering one of his eyes, as a child he was abandoned but eventually the Archdeacon Claude Frollo adopted him on Quasimodo Sunday (the first Sunday after Easter). Frollo names him after the day he was found. As he grows up he becomes hated for his deformities but it is revealed that he has a kind heart. Model: Roy Mathews |
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March 6: Lisbeth Salander / The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She is fiercely independent, stubborn, and intelligent, and is able to use both her smarts and violence to get herself out of sticky situations. She's motivated by a desire to expose people's secrets as well as exact revenge for crimes, particularly violent crimes against women. Model: Xochi Jimenez |
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March 13: Puck / A Midsummer Night's Dream. Puck is a powerful supernatural creature, capable of circling the globe in 40 minutes or of enshrouding unsuspecting mortals in a deep fog. Also known as Robin Goodfellow, Puck would have been familiar to a sixteenth-century English audience, who would have recognized him as a common household spirit also often associated with travelers. Model: Caitlin Hanson |
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March 20: Éponine / Les Miserables. Éponine is the eldest daughter in the Thénardier family. But just because she's not exactly high-falutin' doesn't mean she's an unregenerate reprobate like dear old dad. In fact, she protects Cosette and Jean Valjean's house from her father and his goons because she has such deep feelings for Marius. Model: Cecily Whittier |
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March 27: Paul Bunyan / folklore, tall tales. The hero of yarns first told along the Canadian border about 1837. Bunyan first saw Babe, the Blue Ox, the winter the blue snow fell. Bunyan invents the multiplication table, the cube root system, and algebra so that he can keep accurate records. He sweats so hard cutting the stonewood trees in Utah that he creates Salt Lake. With the coming of machinery, however, there is no place for him, and he and Babe disappear forever. Model: Clyde Shurtleff |
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April 3: Harley Quinn / Batman comics. Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel, PhD, is a frequent accomplice and lover of the Joker, whom she met while working as a psychiatrist at Gotham City's Arkham Asylum, where the Joker was a patient. The character has teamed up with fellow villains Catwoman and Poison Ivy several times, the trio being known as the Gotham City Sirens Model: Gabby Cox |
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April 10: Nolan / Killer Angels: Nolan is a Union Army doctor in the American Civil War who has never treated a black person until one is brought to him by his fellow Union soldiers. Models: Larry and Naomi Bilyeu |
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April 17: Alice / Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The seven-year-old protagonist of the story. Alice believes that the world is orderly and stable, and she has an insatiable curiosity about her surroundings. Wonderland challenges and frustrates her perceptions of the world. Model: Gabby Cox |
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April 24: Don Quixote / The Ingenious Nobleman Sir Don Quixote of La Mancha. The novel’s tragicomic hero. Don Quixote’s main quest in life is to revive knight-errantry in a world devoid of chivalric virtues and values. He believes only what he chooses to believe and sees the world very differently from most people. Honest, dignified, proud, and idealistic, he wants to save the world. Model: Jim Shurtleff |
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May 1: Merlin / Arthurian Legends. A sorcerer who arranges for Arthur to be brought up outside the royal court, in exchange for providing Uther with the means of attaining Igraine as his wife. Merlin’s powers include foretelling the future and enchanting mortals to follow his command. But his powers are also partial and limited, and ultimately he succumbs to the very mortal weakness of desire, which leads to his death. Model: Derek Wood |
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May 8: Mr. Tumnus / The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Mr. Tumnus is a Faun—a creature that is human from the waist up and a goat from the waist down. He is the first person Lucy meets in Narnia and they quickly become besties. Although Mr. Tumnus had previously agreed to hand over any human being he met to the White Witch, as soon as he meets Lucy and gets to know her, he realizes that he can do no such thing. Model: James Harris |
May 15: Holly Golightly / Breakfast at Tiffany's. Holly was orphaned at a young age and we learn that her childhood was pretty rough since she was forced to move in with some pretty terrible relatives after her parents' deaths. She and her brother Fred eventually run away and they end up living at Doc Golightly’s after one of his daughters finds them trying to steal milk. The two look so pitiful that Doc takes them in, and Holly eventually marries him because he's been so good to her and because, as she tells us, she loves him. Model: Caitlin Hanson |
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May 22: Tom Sawyer / The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom is a mischievous boy with an active imagination who spends most of the novel getting himself, and often his friends, into and out of trouble. Despite his mischief, Tom has a good heart and a strong moral conscience. As the novel progresses, he begins to take more seriously the responsibilities of his role as a leader among his schoolfellows. Model: Berkeley Terry |
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May 29: Nurse Ratched / One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The cold, implacable head nurse of the psychiatric ward. Chief Bromden describes her arrival for morning shift: “She slides through the door with a gust of cold . . .” As a former Army nurse, prides herself on order and efficiency. She quickly extinguishes any behavior on the ward that deviates from her mechanized regime. Model: Jennifer Terry |
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June 5: Agatha Trunchbull / Matilda. Agatha Trunchbull is the headmistress of Crunchem Hall, a primary school for students five through twelve years old in Roald Dahl's Matilda. Trunchbull is a force to be reckoned with. She's unattractive to look at and built like a tank; her thick, stocky, muscular body is usually clothed in a uniform similar to a soldier’s. Ms. Trunchbull was an athlete when she was younger, and she still has a powerful body. When she moves around the school, she doesn't walk, she marches, and when she marches everyone gets out of her way! Model: Cassie Walker |
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June 12: Hercule Poirot / developed by Agatha Christie. A retired Belgian police officer. Poirot is Christie's most famous detective and is known for his short stature and long, curly moustache. Poirot is very intelligent, extremely aware and instinctual and is a brilliant detective. Model: Trevor Walker |
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June 19: Katniss Everdeen / Hunger Games. When she was 16 years old, Katniss volunteered to take her sister, Primrose Everdeen's place in the 74th Hunger Games after Prim's name was called during the reaping. Originally, she had no intention of going into the games, hoping she wouldn't be picked before the female tribute was chosen. Model: Brittany Buehler |
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June 26: Witches / Shakespeare's Macbeth. Three “black and midnight hags” who plot mischief against Macbeth using charms, spells, and prophecies. Their predictions prompt him to murder Duncan, to order the deaths of Banquo and his son, and to blindly believe in his own immortality. Models: Heather, Lee, and Lily Shurtleff |
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Emily Stone doesn’t have a badge. But that hasn’t stopped her from tracking down some of the West’s most dangerous child-killers. Armed with a digital SLR camera, laptop computer and her trusty Beretta, Stone uses her innate gift for detective work to identify the perps — and then anonymously e-mail the evidence to the cops. Model: Brittany Buehler |
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July 10: Peter Pan / Peter Pan. Peter is the clever, adventurous, and confident leader of the Lost Boys. While at times he is boastful and self-centered, there is a side of Peter that is caring and joyous. His desire to stay a child forever allows him to continue his adventures unburdened by the realities of growing up. He is the embodiment of youthful naivete. Model: John Myers |
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July 17: King Mongkut of Siam / Anna and the King of Siam. Temperamental and sometimes cruel, at other times childlike, generous, and kind. Intelligent, in spite of his capriciousness, he is willing to try advanced ideas. Model: Jared Meibos |
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July 24: Holiday - No Character Sketches.
July 31: Ginger Grant / Gilligan's Island. Ginger is a "movie star", and would casually mention names of some of the biggest movie stars of the day, as co-stars or acquaintances, suggesting that she too was a great star. She also mentions her roommate and fellow actress, Debbie Dawson, several times. Gillilgan's Island ran from 1964 to 1967 and fostered spin off movies like "Return to Gilligan's Island." It has also generated several books about the show and it's characters including "Inside Gilligan's Island: From Creation to Syndacation" and "Mary Ann's Gilligan's Island Cookbook." Model: Kimber Myers |
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August 7: Vin / Mistborn. Vin is the main protagonist of the Mistborn Trilogy. She was recruited to help overthrow the Lord Ruler by Kelsier, and played a pivotal role in the Lord Ruler's defeat, the subsequent Skaa government, and the consolidation of the Second Final Empire. She is later praised as the "Ascendant Warrior" in The Alloy of Law though at that point she is more myth than fact. Model: Xochi Jimenez |
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August 14: Scheherazade / One Thousand and One Nights. King Shahryar found out that his first wife was unfaithful to him. He thus resolved to marry a new virgin each day as well as behead the previous day's wife, so that she would have no chance to be unfaithful to him. He had killed 1,001 such women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter. Against her father's wishes, Scheherazade volunteered to spend one night with the king. Once in the king's chambers, Scheherazade asked if she might bid one last farewell to her beloved sister, Dunyazad, who had secretly been prepared to ask Scheherazade to tell a story during the long night. The king lay awake and listened with awe as Scheherazade told her first story. So the king kept Scheherazade alive day by day, as he eagerly anticipated the finishing of the previous night's story. At the end of 1,001 nights, and 1,000 stories, Scheherazade told the king that she had no more tales to tell him. During these 1,001 nights, the king had fallen in love with Scheherazade. He spared her life and made her his queen. Model: Kay Scott |
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August 21: Despite her beauty and charm, Daisy is merely a selfish, shallow, and in fact, hurtful, woman. Gatsby loves her (or at least the idea of her) with such vitality and determination that readers would like, in many senses, to see her be worthy of his devotion. Although Fitzgerald carefully builds Daisy's character with associations of light, purity, and innocence, when all is said and done, she is the opposite from what she presents herself to be. Model: Gabby Cox |
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August 28: Jason / Jason and the Golden Fleece (The Argonautica). Jason's real strength lies in his leadership skills. Nobody ever says he's a bad warrior, but his quest is truly achieved through his skills at delegation. Instead of sailing off to get the Golden Fleece all by himself, he assembles the most intimidating team of heroes the world has ever seen. Model: Phil Jenson |
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September 4: Roland Deschain / Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Roland becomes a gunslinger at the unheard-of age of 14 after being manipulated into taking the "trial of manhood" by Marten Broadcloak, his father's adviser. Marten has an affair with Roland's mother and makes sure Roland finds out about it, prompting Roland to request his trial in order to gain his guns and exact revenge on Marten. Roland is a 30th-generation descendant of his world's version of King Arthur, referred to in the series as Arthur Eld. Model: Randy Seely |
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September 11: Sula / Toni Morrison. Sula Peace, the main antagonist, whose return to the Bottom disrupts the whole community. The main reason for Sula's strangeness is her defiance of gender norms and traditional morality, symbolized by the birthmark "that spread from the middle of the lid toward the eyebrow, shaped something like a stemmed rose." Model: Koryn Sobel |
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September 18: Jim Chee / Tony Hillerman character. Jim Chee is one of two Navajo Tribal Police detectives in a series of mystery novels by Tony Hillerman. Unlike his superior Joe Leaphorn, the "Legendary Lieutenant", Chee is a staunch believer in traditional Navajo culture; indeed, he is studying to be a traditional healer at the same time that he is a police officer. Model: Bobby Rowser |
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September 25: Luther Billis / South Pacific. A Seabee who rates himself as a great entrepreneur in the tourist souvenir business, but is constantly outsmarted by Bloody Mary. He is everybody's chum and general help-mate. Model: Kent Barney |
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October 2: Jeeves / developed by P. G. Wodhouse. Jeeves is the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Bertie Wooster. First appearing in print in 1915, Jeeves continued to feature in Wodehouse's work until his last completed novel Aunts Aren't Gentlemen in 1974, a span of 60 years. Both the name "Jeeves" and the character of Jeeves have come to be thought of as the quintessential name and nature of a valet or butler. A "Jeeves" is now a generic term as validated by its entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. Model: Paul Terry |
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October 9: Rollerskate Carhop / American Graffiti: A waiter or waitress who serves food to customers in their cars. Model: Gabby Cox |
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October 16: Anthony "Ant" Jones / Black Boy White School: In a hard-hitting novel about fitting in—or not—Anthony “Ant” Jones gets transported from his East Cleveland hood to an almost all-white prep school and has to figure out where he belongs...before he loses himself entirely. Everyone calls him “Tony,” assumes he’s from Brooklyn, expects him to play basketball, and yet acts shocked when he fights back. As Anthony tries to adapt to a world that will never fully accept him, he’s in for a rude awakening: Home is becoming a place where he no longer belongs. Model: Mekhi Sobel |
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October 23: Ouiser Boudreaux / Steel Magnolias. Ousier is an older woman in her late fifties to early sixties. She is seen as bitter and annoyed most of the time. She has a dislike towards Drum Eatenton. In her life, the things she values the most are her dog Rhett and her property. She is constantly arguing with M’Lynn’s husband Drum over property but does have a deep concern with Shelby like all other characters. Even though she speaks poorly to the other women sometimes, she still considers them as her closest companion. She has been married twice and has children. Model: Heather Shurtleff |
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October 30: Unidentified character. Scheduling issues forced a last minute model change. Mekhi Sobel modeled no specific character. Thanks Mekhi for stepping in at the last moment! Model: Mekhi Sobel |
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November 2: Edward Hyde / Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A deformed, disgusting man somewhat younger than Dr. Jekyll who is apparently devoid of a profession. Some describe witnessing something indefinably evil and horrific in Edward Hyde's face. He is often compared to animals, implying that he is not a fully evolved human being. Despite these descriptions, Hyde is generally civilized in his interactions with others. Dr. Jekyll describes Hyde as "pure evil," who menaces society at night, trampling a girl in the street and murdering Sir Danvers Carew. Model: Lee Montgomery |
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Character Sketches is not held in November or December. Character Sketches will continue through October 30, 2019 and resume January 8, 2020.