Live Drawing in New York: A Dying Art?

In a week where AI has flooded the zone of artistic conversation, I was asked to draw digital hand-drawn caricatures for one of the last companies that can afford to pay anyone.

Picture this: me, a 40-something Australian with a pen, standing next to a robot that looks like a photocopier had sex with a vending machine. We're both drawing people. The robot finishes in 10 seconds. I take 5 minutes. Guess who had the queue wrapped around the block?

But first…

Thank you to everyone who chimed in on the comments to yesterday’s piece. I really appreciate everyone’s nuanced takes on the issue. The drying-up of opportunities for artists is an ongoing conversation, and something I’m obviously passionate about. (Incidentally, so is my landlord.)

Live Drawing New Yorkers All Day

Last night, I paired up with one of my favourite New York Substacks,

City happenings: something fun to do everyday in New York

at my longtime local, Porchlight. It was a fun night, and I really loved meeting a lot of you who read this (and her) newsletter in person. We had a great night, and I drew a lot of people. Thank you all for coming!

I was drawing by hand, in pen and ink, as I have done at events for over 20 years. I started out in my hometown fo Perth, Western Australia, doing private events like weddings and birthdays, eventually moving up to corporate events and conferences, joining agencies and getting booked out for anything and everything you can imagine. If there are types of events where people are gathered in a room —usually to drink—odds are, I’ve been booked to draw at it. It’s something I enjoy, and even the ‘hell gigs’ are kind of fun …in retrospect.

But here's the kicker: despite the supposed renaissance of in-person experiences—live theatre, comedy, music are all supposedly booming—my bookings have dried up faster than a puddle in the Sahara. Turns out people want "authentic human connection," but only if it comes with WiFi and finishes in under thirty seconds. Everyone's chasing the next shiny tech gimmick, because apparently, what every wedding needs is more screens.

Drawing at Porchlight felt like the old New York—real people, real conversations, real art happening in real time. But even there, I half-expected someone to ask if I had an app for this.

Right before the Porchlight event, I’d been booked for a few hours to draw digital caricatures for a large tech company. Another caricaturist and I were set up on Tuesday and Thursday for a company-wide event where we live-sketched the attendees on our iPads, hooked up to screens. We’d print out the quick sketches and hand them to the attendees to take home. There’s a Dropbox of images for them to download the file from, too. It’s a digital spin on the traditional service. People seem to enjoy it.

Not far away, there was an AI machine that had attendees stand in front of it. It would look at them, take a photo, then turn them into a little cartoon character. It took approximately 10 to 15 seconds.

Hard to compete with 15 second cartoons

Guess which of us had the longer line?