I take the ferry into Seattle every morning. And it is a very early ferry (6am) and thus there are many commuters who take the 40 minute crossing as an opportunity to take a nap.
However there is this one woman who gets on and has this sketch pad and she finds some unsuspecting sleeping commuter and proceeds to sketch him/her while they sleep! Now I see her do this and I have to admit it bugs me to no end–not sure why. Somehow in my view it is sort of an invasion of that sleeping persons privacy I suppose. Now I was talking to a coworker about this and he thought that if you sleep in a public place you take your chances–and on one hand I agree with that–but somehow it still bugs me!
I know it would spook me to suddenly wake up and look up and see someone looking intently at me and sketching me! Maybe I am just too sensitive about this!
I am a pretty good sketcher myself-maybe I should follow her around and sketch her sketching the sleeping commuters–sort of give her a does of her own medicine so to speak!
so my question is this–would you be creeped out if you were innocently taking a nap and then opened your eyes and realized some stranger was sketching you? Or would you be flattered and think that was just great?
I’m with your coworker on this – if a person doesn’t want to be sketched in public, he or she should stay awake and tell potential sketchers to knock it off.
It wouldn’t bother me – I’d ask to see the sketch of me and the rest of the series.
Artists need to practice their skill in order to perfect their trade. Animals and humans are far more difficult to perfect than a landscape in my opinion. So let them practice. Besides, it is really hard to get an animal to pose for any length of time.
I’d be floored that someone wanted to sketch me, maybe, but I wouldn’t be offended. Especially if I could see that it was just a matter of randomly choosing an interesting looking person and sketching, and not stalking-by-sketchbook.
And I don’t see how it can be an invasion of privacy if you’re in public, awake or asleep.
A woman on an airplane next to my father sketched him while he was sleeping and actually gave him the sketch after the flight. I think he actually had it framed and it’s hanging in my parent’s house somewhere.
Wouldn’t bother me in the slightest… but then, I’m an artist by trade and I’ve done pretty much the same thing, myself. I’ve never had any complaints, and it’s a bit of a conversation starter.
What Lightnin’ said. It’s pretty much a standard thing for many artists to do. I’ve done it while riding on the bus, etc. People are usually intrigued or flattered when they’ve found out that they’ve been sketched.
Sketching isn’t the same as photography, because even if you do a really perfect likeness of the person, it’s still a sketch, and there is some wiggle room there—the sketched person can believe that it doesn’t really look like them (if it’s an unflattering sketch), and if the sketch were ever published, it would be hard to prove that it was actually a sketch of a specific person. Most people would look at the sketch and think, “Hey, that looks like Bob” but they’d never know it was Bob, and very likely would assume that it wasn’t. So, in this respect, doing drawings of random people like this can be rather impersonal and anonymous.
Hell, a lot of us sketch made-up faces that look like they could be specific individuals, even though we drew them from our imagination. So, if I did a sketch of Bob sleeping and later published it, even Bob wouldn’t know for sure it was him, or of anybody. I could just say that I made the face up.
Jan: Do you like my rendering of you, my dear?
Maidservant Pouring Milk: (Creeped out and furious.) How could you sneak up on me and paint this atrocity? And you made me look so fat!! So ugly!! No one will ever want to look at something so hideous!!! !
Next time this happens, pretend to be asleep and mumble “Kill all sketch artists. Kill all sketch artists,” snap awake and say to the guy, “Hey, I just had the best dream. And I think you were in it.”
Yeah, it’s a public place, but look, we all have to be in public. That’s why manners were invented. And maybe I’m old-fashioned, but sketching someone on the ride to work without asking permission is rude. The fact that s/he may be taking advantage of the ride to catch a few winks is no excuse.
Well, they’d probably be more annoyed if she woke them to ask if it was okay.
I am not an artist, but I’m guessing she chooses sleeping people because they’ll hold their poses better. And she won’t be bugged by ‘can I see it? Are you finished yet?’ questions. Seems fair enough to me, but then I’d be astounded if anyone wanted to sketch me awake *or * sleeping!
I was once asleep on the grass at Green Lake (hi neighbor!) and woke up to someone’s auto advance camera taking a rool of film of me sleeping. The guy picked up his tripod and ran when I sat up. YES! It was very disturbing. Yes, I felt my privacy was invaded. Its one thing to look at someone sleeping in public, its another to take home a permenent record.
That’s incredibly creepy, picunurse Add me to the “hi neighbour!” pool - and
you be careful around Green Lake! I haven’t been around here for long, but my husband and in laws have already given me the warning: “Daytime around Green Lake is okay, but stay alert if you’re alone, and when it gets dark, head in” - too much bad news for women around there! (apologies if you’re not a woman, but still be careful!) There are a lot of creeps out there, but they seem to like Green Lake, sadly… even though it’s so crowded in the daytime, that’s probably potential for more weirdos to be trolling around out in the open… argh! Oh, your picture story is creeping me out a bit! LOL
I don’t mean to sound preachy or condescending or overprotective mother-y, but I’ve been warned about keeping my eyes open around Green Lake, and now I just feel like this was a good example as to why. So creepy. shivers
And yet, for some reason, the sketching doesn’t bug me too much. Maybe it’s because there’s an “excuse”. Photo taking = creepy. Sketching = eh. Another poster mentioned that sketching, no matter how accurate, is still just a sketch - never the actual person. So it may look like Bob, but it’s possible it’s not Bob. A photo of Bob, however, seems a little more deliberate, and more of an invasion of privacy. Every hair, mole, blemish, ungroomed eyebrow, chapped lip, hangnail, etc, all there for a photograph to see, or study… a picture, however, often, no matter how detailed, will skim over those things, and sometimes critical details about a person’s face are left out. And on the ferry ride, you’d have to be one heck of an artist to cram that amount of detail into a sketch. So, in my mind, the sketcher registers as “practising”. The creepy photographer in Green Lake, in my mind, registers as !creep alert! Creep alert!
I know I’m factoring location in with the scenario, as well, but I think it should be part of the equation.
(I really hope I didn’t offend you in any way, picunurse, your story just sent shivers up my spine, and I just want you to be safe - my husband always tells me to “prepare for the worst and hope for the best”, and I love being around Green Lake, and even want to buy a kayak so hubby and I can go out in the summer, but oh! Photo-taking sneaky creeps make me mad!)
Anastasaeon, yes, sketching is different, because it’s not usually a faithful record of the model. It could be something funky like this. There’s no way anyone is going to be able to tell who these drawings are of later on—they’re just practice work and they could be drawings of anyone. (That page I linked to is not mine, by the way, I just found it in a Google search. Extremely nice work, too.)
The “excuse” thing is also quite valid. Artists need to practice and everyone knows this. However, anyone can get a camera, take a photo—can say, “I’m a photographer” and you really have no idea if it’s true or not, or if they are a stalker or a nutcase. But a sketch artist, well, that requires that you actually, well, be able to draw. You have to go out with your sketch pad and draw things. Not everyone is going to do this. Only people who are serious about drawing are going to do this. So you can pretty much figure that they are who they say they are—an artist who is practicing sketching—and nothing more. Artists have instant credibility in that respect. All they would have to do is show you their sketch pad full of vague, half-finished sketches, and you’d know that when they sketched you, it was nothing personal, and there’s no creepy intent.
I would feel violated by someone taking a picture while I was sleeping, but if I were awake would probably give them permission. As for the sketch, I say “Sketch away.” As others have said, there is room for interpretation, I think I’d be flattered that an artist thought me an interesting subject.
