Fidget Sketcher

The rage (maybe it's dying back a little, by now) is Fidget Spinners, the little gizmos that can be twirled to amuse and assuage the perpetual fidgeter. I bought one, but couldn't make it work very well--so I passed it along to my eleven-year-old granddaughter.  

Besides, it didn't take the place of my favorite fidget-management tool, the tiny sketchbook that's always tucked inside my purse.

Even reading the spell-binding novel brought along from home doesn't do it for me when I'm waiting for something--whether it's a doctor's appointment, a plane trip, or a play or concert. I can't focus on a book when there's something 'about to happen,' something I'm waiting for. 

That's where my sketchbook comes in handy. All I have to do is look around, pick someone, and start to draw. Most people change their position within two or three minutes, so my drawings are all what might be called "time studies." 

None lasts longer than just a few minutes, like a classic life-drawing class where the teacher calls for warm-up exercises by timing models for one-, three-, five-minute poses at the beginning of class.    

Even feet fidget.
I'll just get started drawing
 them,and they move!

I commuted to downtown Seattle by bus (1986 - 1997) and my sketchbook was a great sanity provider then (pre-cellphone), although the commute was plenty long enough to get engrossed in a book. However, sometimes I didn't have a good book, so I began drawing my fellow commuters as they slept for the entire trip. It was a perfect set-up: my subjects didn't know I was drawing them (when a subject does know, I always stop--pretending that I'm making a grocery list) and a sleeping subject is an artist's dream-model: physically static. 

These are a few very fast sketches from my current purse sketchbook (4"x 6"), now almost full and ready to be stashed in a shoe box with all the others. Not great art, but considering none is more than five minutes (most are considerably less), it's a fun (and challenging) way for me to fidget while I wait.