Pull out your pens, pencils, pastels, and paper—Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art school is open in Denton yet again!

For those who may not be familiar, Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art school is an international alternative drawing movement that began in 2005 at a bar in Brooklyn. According to the Dr. Sketchy website, “Artists draw glamorous underground performers in an atmosphere of boozy conviviality.” Twist our arms, why don’t you?

Local artist Joe Duncan is the current organizer of Dr. Sketchy’s Denton, but he wasn’t the first. By the time Joe arrived in Denton the first group had disbanded and he wanted to revive it. “I wanted to get it going again because there is a significant demographic of visual artists in Denton who fall through the cracks—because they are not easily definable or don’t fit the commonly accepted fine art categories that already exist,” he explains. “I think there are a ton of top-notch illustrators that lean more toward a comics or pop culture aesthetic who need a place to help them facilitate that pursuit.” Duncan is also quick to point out that artists need communities to help one another grow personally and professionally as creative people. “I hope Dr. Sketchy’s Denton can aid that growth and development,” he says.

Attending a Dr. Sketchy’s event simply involves showing up with your chosen tools and supplies, within reason—no exceptionally huge easels or eight-foot-long canvases, please. Once you’re all set up, the event is basically like a loosely-structured life drawing class, though Duncan points out that participants are encouraged to think of their model as also being an artist, rather than a nameless body or prop. The $5 drawing fee goes toward paying the live model and the amount of “boozy conviviality” you engage in is totally up to you.

This week, school is in session at The Bearded Monk on Thursday, August 11th. Everything gets going at 7 PM.

Cover image photo by Joe Duncan.