Pencil Artist of the Week: Katie from Sketchbook Buc'n

This week’s Pencil Artist of the Week is Katie Sekelsky, the artist behind Sketchbook Buc’n. For those unfamiliar, Sketchbook Buc’n is a blog dedicated to chronicling every game of the Pirate’s 2012 season with sketches, drawings and doodles. Instead of the usual Pencil Artist of the Week bio and description, here’s an interview with the artist discussing Sketchbook Buc’n, drawing, baseball and how they all fit together. Enjoy!

Interview with Pencil Artist Katie Sekelsky

What inspired you to start Sketchbook Buc’n? Why drawing?

I had been using photos and videos of athletes for sketching practice for a while, so when another Pirates fan on Twitter (Jon from McEffect.com) mentioned that he was going to get a notebook to document the season, I decided to steal his idea, but do drawings instead.

How did you get into drawing?

When I was in 6th grade, I transferred schools from one without much of an arts department to one with dedicated art teachers. I quickly learned that I had a knack for art that I’d never realized before. So I’ve pretty much been drawing constantly since then.

What is the goal of this project? Is it just to show your team spirit, or is there something more?

It’s partly to support the Buccos, of course. But I also started out with the goal of improving my figure drawing skills, specifically in terms of action poses.

162 drawings is a lot of drawing! Have the dog days of summer gotten to you yet?

I think I got all my slacking done in the month of June, actually! I got about 6 weeks behind at one point, so after getting close to being caught up, it’s not seeming too hard to keep up the pace.

Who (or what) has been your favorite subject to draw during the 2012 season?

If for no other reason than “it makes me laugh every time,” I’ve really been enjoying drawing Erik Bedard as a cat (as seen here , here and here), and also any time I get to draw a home run montage (like here).

Did you anticipate the Pirates would be doing this well at the beginning of the season? Cutch has been otherworldly!

It’s hard to anticipate things like this after 19 years of losing seasons (spanning way back into before I was even interested in baseball), but I was certainly hopeful, and felt a little less like that hope was just me kidding myself than other years. But to predict just how well they’re doing and how Cutch is looking out there? That’s just a pleasant, pleasant surprise.

Can you describe your creative process? When do you usually create your sketches? What tools do you use?

I originally intended to do drawings DURING the games, but that’s tended to be a bit difficult, so the drawings get done later. Depending on whether or not I was able to catch the game, I either make note of the highlights I want to capture or check post-game recaps and highlights to decide what to draw. I then use photos and video stills as reference and sketch it out in pencil. I use Microns to ink the lettering, and a Pentel Pocket Brush to ink the sketches.

What are your plans after the 2012 season? Will there be a Sketchbook Buc’n in 2013?After the season, I will probably use some of the drawings as reference for some art prints or posters commemorating the season. As for next year – I’ll have to see how burnt out I am after this year! I may scale it back to weekly recap drawings. But I will definitely still be putting out artwork in support of the Bucs in some way or another!