SXSW Sxetches

DoodlesWhat kind of photographer am I if I don’t bring my camera around with me wherever I go? Not much of one, apparently. Lately, I’ve been frustrated with the total bulk that my Nikon D70 requires when I travel — lenses, flash, batteries, etc.

In fact, I didn’t bring it with me to this year’s South by Southwest Interactive festival, choosing to leave it at home so that I could move more quickly through the airport (bringing it along would have required me to check one bag). This is why I have no photographs from the show, but if you’re looking for visual documentation, there’s some wonderful shots from Lisa Whiteman at her Flickr account, and similarly beautiful work from Naz Hamid on his Flickr account, too.

Did I Draw You?

For my part, I brought along my less visually accurate but infinitely more convenient Moleskine notebook and, much as I did recently in Paris, did a lot of sketching. I’m liking this.

So, herewith, a sampling of the off-the-cuff doodles I made while sitting around the Austin Convention Center, watching panels or chatting in the hallways with other attendees. One thing these drawings don’t do well that photographs do better is capturing some other mode of the attendees’ activities other than… just sitting around. That’s the hard thing with sketching a business conference: not much happens aside from sitting around on one’s ass. It makes for rather boring drawings, to be sure, but to add a little excitement, South by Southwest attendees may want to see if they can spot themselves amongst the doodles, as there’s a chance I drew you… hours and hours of fun!

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  2. Wilson

    Ah, those look great! I think I recognize a few faces (or profiles), one hunched over guy in glasses in particular, but I could be wrong.

  5. Nikolay

    Nice sketches. Back to the past where photojournalism was drawing journalism and there were drawings instead of photos in the newspapers 🙂

  7. Rob Weychert

    There’s me, third from the left in the top-most set, complete with BMI lanyard hanging from halfway up the back of my 50-foot-long neck. Of course, you showed me that sketch minutes after making it, so I’m not surprised to see it now, but I’m still quite happy to be included. As I think I said when you posted your sketches from Paris awhile back, you’ve managed to squeeze quite a bit of character into those spontaneous lines. Thanks for sharing!

  8. Naz Hamid

    Another nice set. They sort of take on a different life in black and white (since I’ve seen you do these originally in blue ink). I saw the third from left on the bottom set as you did it in that panel we were in. It helps me remember exactly what that person looked like.

  9. Patrick Born

    I thought you might be sketching during the Indie Developer panel. I wasn’t sure, but the bottom right one looks like it could be me. I wore a green shirt that day that had a similar pattern. I also have a beard. Not quite with that much girth, but that could be exaggeration.

  11. xian

    these are wonderful… great feeling. there’s something special about sketching with ink, isn’t there? odd analogy: doing a crossword in ink

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