Curious Spectators: Part 1 - The Problem

Yesterday's post about sketching strangers on subways led to a lively discussion about how best to manage the encounter between the artist and the unwitting model.

Here I am painting at the Platte Clove Community in Elka Park, New York.
Actually these folks were very respectful and asked smart, observant questions. 

Here's another dimension of this issue. If we as artists expect to have the right to look at strangers and draw them in the public sphere, we also have to yield to the right of people around us to watch us paint or draw. Like it or not, artists working in public become a form of entertainment that curious spectators feel entitled to watch.  Drawing or painting is a form of magic that no one can resist.


Anyone who has sketched outside have heard some of these same questions, and probably a lot more (Please tell me in the comments).

These questions unnerve a lot of would-be sketchers, who often feel that they're being judged, or they irritate painters who need to fully concentrate on a difficult step. It eventually wears me out if the comments are too repetitive or inane.

I've gotten plenty of weird comments. A landowner once shouted from his monster truck: "Makin' money off my tree?" A lawyer who owned a property said, "Don't fall into the water and drown. That would be actionable."

Another time I had to jettison a good spot because I realized it was the unloading zone for busload after busload of bored tourists.


Here's Spanish painter Antonio Lopez Garcia facing unusual odds in Puerta Del Sol.
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Tomorrow: Some Solutions to the Problem of Curious Spectators