Lightning Sketch Artists

Entertaining an audience with live drawing

A popular stage act around 1900 was the lightning sketch artist. These performers drew quickly in front of the audience, providing a lively patter as they brought the drawing through amusing or surprising transformations. 

Edwin Lutz thanks Michael Sporn Animation

Typically they worked in charcoal on a big piece of paper on an easel, but sometimes they used chalk and a chalkboard. The act often required strategically adding new lines that changed the drawing into something else. 

Sometimes the transformations involved turning the drawing upside down. Inspired by an old book called "The Art of Chalk Talk," I adapted a normal easel with a lazy susan swivel that allows me to turn drawings upside down, and I've tried similar gags in my lectures.

A few of the acts by the original performers were filmed, including an 1898 performance with “Quick Sketches of Leading Statesman." He stopped the camera between different sketches to change paper.

Another early sketch artist was Harry Furniss, who took up drawing in front of the camera after a prolific career in illustration. His film “Peace and War Pencillings” was a precursor of true animation, showcasing Furniss's "Lightning Artist" technique.

One of the great lightning sketch artists was Winsor McCay (c. 1867-1934), better known for his contributions to comics (Little Nemo) and animation (Gertie the Dinosaur), but those achievements were related to his other career as a lightning sketch artist on the vaudeville stage.

"Impresario F. F. Proctor approached McCay in April 1906 to perform chalk talks for the vaudeville circuit. For $500 per week he was to draw twenty-five sketches in fifteen minutes before live audiences, as a pit band played a piece called "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend" (source: Wikipedia).

What McCay achieved in his early animations was way ahead of its time.