PORTLAND, Maine — Sketch, sip, repeat.
That’s how it’s done at the Portland Drawing Group’s weekly “Drink & Draw” sessions, held Wednesday nights in a hideaway — the third floor lounge high above The Thirsty Pig on Exchange Street.
This week, about 20 artists circled around a model, glancing back and forth between his nude body and their paper, scratching out works in charcoal, pencil and ink. In the corner, a bartender served 16-ounce cans of craft beer, as well as hard seltzer, cider and soft drinks for a little extra artistic motivation.
The barkeep also kept time for each pose.
“We just want people to know this is a drawing club that drinks, not a drinking club that draws,” said group co-organizer Don Thompson.
Though the boozy drawing sessions are held in a semi-secretive event space administered by The Thirsty Pig, they are open to the over-21 public, regularly attracting 30 artists per week.
This is welcome news for the city’s artsy scribblers, as the pandemic killed every in-person life drawing session for miles around.
Last summer, on this side of the fading COVID-19 crisis, Wednesday’s model and artist Geo SanGiovanni started up an outdoor drawing group in Congress Square. Things went OK until fall.
“Then it got cold,” said Thompson. “We started going into bars but they were either too small or too crowded.”
Clockwise, from left: Alex Truslow (bottom) and Erin Sternfels sketch model Geo SanGiovanni at the Portland Drawing Group’s weekly Drink & Draw event on Wednesday night, June 28, 2023; Josie Colt (left) sketches model Geo SanGiovanni at the Portland Drawing Group’s weekly Drink & Draw event; Thomas McDonald takes a swig of beer at the Portland Drawing Group’s weekly Drink & Draw event while Will Quayle sketches behind him. Credit: Troy R. Bennett / BDN
Then, just after the new year, the group found its current space.
“Then it went kind of crazy,” SanGiovanni said. “The second one we had, there were like 50 people here.”
He credits co-founder Josie Colt’s Instagram acumen with the group’s current success, as much as he does the drinks. Besides social media and an email list, word-of-mouth has been the group’s biggest promoter, Colt said.
In return for giving the group free use of the space on Wednesdays, The Thirsty Pig gets beer sales on what would otherwise be a dark night in the hideaway, which can be rented out for parties and events. In addition to Wednesday, the drawing group rents the room, outright, once a month for poses long enough for oil painters to do their work.
Even though the Drink & Draw concept is turning out to be a winner, it’s not a boisterous, bar-like atmosphere. This week, as SanGiovanni struck his poses, soft bossa nova tunes burbled out of a speaker, just barely drowning out the sound of pencils dragging across rough-toothed paper. Conversations were quiet and sparse.
A sign by the entrance reminded participants to keep their phone use to a minimum.
“We’re pretty studious — but with drinks,” Colt said.
Artist Thomas McDonald sat at one end of the room making bold, black strokes on large pieces of paper while studying his subject. Often appearing transfixed, McDonald let up on his gaze only to sip his IPA at regular intervals.
When asked if the beer helps his artistic ambitions, he immediately smiled.
“Yeah. I gotta say yes,” he said. “Coffee always helps — but beer helps sometimes, too.”
