Not Everyone Will Love Your Sketch At Live Events, And That’s OK!
A question I get asked a lot by budding live event artists is have I ever had someone not like my drawing?
And the questions asked as if people think if that ever happened, the client makes you pack up your shit and kicks you out of the venue and you’re blacklisted from every job ever.
That’s just not the case! Not everyone will like your drawing at a live event… and that’s just the reality!
It’s not something to fear, like this impending apocalypse that nukes your career once it happens, it’s just part of the job.
It can happen for a million reasons, but the world keeps spinning and everything is still OK, so it’s not a case of thinking omg what IF it happens, it’s a case of thinking it’s gonna happen, and it’s normal.
Like I said, there’s a million reasons someone might not like your portrait, for most events you’ll be drawing the general public, people who aren’t artists, aren’t necessarily creative people and don’t have a huge passion for fashion illustration.
Most peoples comprehension of whether something is good or bad is how much it looks like what you’re drawing, how realistic something is, because that’s something we can all universally understand.
So when you do stylised illustrations, not everyone is going to understand it and interpret it the same way.
These people aren’t your followers or your fans (yet!), the drawing you’re creating them is the first time they’ve been introduced to your work, and depending on your style it can be a lot to take in.
I know when I first started and I was doing extremely abstract illustrations, for the most part when I turned the paper round and showed people, there was a 2-3 second pause of people trying to decipher the image.
But if I drew followers or friends at an event, there would be an immediate gasp of ‘I love it’ because they already had the context for my work and to expect the one eye, abstraction etc
Something that always helps me brush off any not so positive experiences… I imagine Picasso sitting at a desk drawing peoples portraits, without people knowing it’s Picasso, he’s in disguise or something…
If this ‘stranger’ turned round a piece of paper and you saw he’d captured you with a side facing nose, green skin, stubby arms and wonky eyes, you’d probably be a lil bit offended, a lil bit in your feelings…
Yet if you know that person doing the portrait is Picasso, everyone knows his paintings are worth a lot of money, he has exhibitions around the world, everyone is told he is a great artist, now with all that background knowledge, the same person would receive that wonky green stubby portrait and love it… because there’s more context to it and essentially society has told people to think it’s good.
At live events on average you’ll be drawing 30-40 people, out of 40 drawings done back to back you’re bound to get either someone not liking it, or a few duff drawings in there… It’s just the name of the game, no-one can produce 40 solid drawings back to back, you just practise enough that your duff drawings are still at a pretty decent level.
The thing to remember is that yes maybe one person wasn’t a fan of the drawing, but the 39 other people you drew that night loved it.
At events you can also never account for what someone else is going to bring to the table or how they’re going to perceive what you’ve drawn
A couple situations I remember, one was a woman that was wearing this really loose white shirt, so as my style was abstract I drew it and only filled in one side, so the right side was negative space, she thought I’d drawn her massive and she said she had recently lost a lot of weight and why did I draw her that big…
Another time I was working on smaller logo’d paper, so I cropped people at the knees so I could focus more on their upper body, I turned it around and the woman shouted ‘what have you done to my legs?’ She saw it as if I’ve made her legs tiny… not realising it’s a 3/4 portrait.
There’s loads of examples like this over the 12 years i’ve been doing events, although it’s initially awkward, it is also helpful to see how your creative choices might be perceived by people, and change it up if certain reactions keep happening consistently.
But the cliche phrase is that art is subjective, and it really is true…
It’s impossible for you to create work that is universally loved… think about it in terms of your favourite song, that song could mean the absolute world to you and you love every part of it, but you play it for your mum and she doesn’t vibe with it, it doesn’t now make it a bad song, it’s just everyones tastes are different.
Not everyone will love something, vanilla ice cream’s the world’s most popular flavour, doesn’t mean it’s the best flavour in the world, just the most palatable for the most people.
So awkward encounters and experiences will happen at events, it’s the name of the game! But just remember its not the end of the world.
When it does happen to you this is where your people skills come into play, laugh with them, joke around, play it off, it’s a quick free drawing they received at an event, it’s not that deep.
…and if it’s really bad you can always just redraw someone to keep them happy and check in with them throughout the sketch just in case.
But just remember, when it does happen, it’s not a career sinker, it’s just the reality of drawing the general public!
