I just got back from a weekend with the fellas out at the bars and clubs of West Virginia and had a great time. This time around, I figured it would be fun to try something that was a real hit at the bars around my university college town. What I'd do up there is take a pad of sticky notes and a pencil, and spend the first half of the night just doodling away, sticking a bunch of characters people know all over the place (mostly CN characters and Pokemon). I didn't notice until a friend pointed it out to me a month after I tried this the first time: The bartenders began collecting my notes and sticking them on the wall behind the bar, which was crazy cool to see. After that, the doodling became a regular thing to do there, and it soon became a great conversation starter with people taking a peek at what I'm doodling and getting a quick hit of nostalgia, and, of course, the bartender kept collecting the notes that the the other patrons didn't take. At that point, it felt great to feel like a Regular with a capital "R". While I've graduated, you know I'm covering the place in little sketches the next time I visit.
Fast-forward to this weekend, I decided to try the same thing. Though, I was a little skeptical this would work out well, considering the clubs around the parts of WV me and the fellas were visiting were a lot bigger and a bit higher class than the modest karaoke bar from school, and the college on the other side of town isn't known as much for quirky, artsy types. Regardless, I began doing my thing. At the end of the day, it's more about having fun than sucking up attention. This time, though, I got a little more creative and employed a few things I learned in my last semester of school: If you're gonna draw characters, ya gotta give 'em some context to really draw people in. In this case, since I'm in a pool hall and a dance club, draw the little guys partying it up with that stuff. Since we started out playing pool, I couldn't just draw Jake the Dog waving a friendly hello. Maybe it would be cooler to sketch 'em up leaning up against the wall with the pool stick waiting for his turn. If you sketch up Mitch Sorenstein, then he's probably gonna make a "My Mom" joke either about putting back shots of tequila or landing a forceful scratch of the cue ball. The bits just write themselves during a hoppin' bar crawl.
Initially, reception to the notes was pretty quiet outside of the posse, though the popularity kicked up when we hit the dance club across the road for a livelier crowd. We got a lot of eyes, a lot of references, and even a few requests. After a bit, even some of the staff got in on it. Heck, the next night starting back at the first bar, we saw all the notes from yesterday getting lined up behind the bar just like up at the old place from school. Feels good to make a mark, but better to shake things up to get groups mixing together over their favorite shows and games.
Until next time.
P.S.: If you're gonna do this yourself, make sure you draw stuff that is widely familiar and that regular people are gonna like. Depending on the venue, ya can't be too avant-garde or too self-interested with it. Otherwise, people are gonna get turned off from someone shoving their personal art all over the place and in the face. You can draw people in with a sharp sketch of Gir or Skips, or even a Slowpoke, and point them to the real personal work on your socials that you actually want to show off. Then, they can take it from there. Remember, it's about bein' cool, bein' real, and just hagin' out. Don't think too hard and don't try too hard.