The journey to 100 portraits
Photos by Peter Korchnak
Former Astoria English teacher and coach Roy Sanchez is experimenting with art on a nontraditional canvas. BELOW LEFT: Sanchez draws portraits of people he knows. BELOW RIGHT: Sanchez
enjoys the challenge of creating portraits on the limited space Post-its provide.
BY PETER KORCHNAK
Artist Roy Sanchez wants no Post-it to
go to waste.
Since September, he has been drawing
portraits on the little 3 by 3-inch squares
with a flair pen, aiming to complete 100
by year’s end.
His models are people he knows per-
sonally, friends or followers on social
media, and even people from online
stock photos.
See Roy Sanchez’s art
Instagram: @roysanchezart
RoySanchez.art
traditional art.
“It’s a creative constraint, if you limit
yourself to 3 by 3 inches, you’re going
to learn how to do things, like composi-
tion,” he said. “You really have to work
hard to figure out how to make it work.”
‘A creative explosion’
“About a quarter are actually animals
because people started asking me to draw
their pets,” Sanchez said.
Why make art on Post-its?
“Somehow I inherited stacks of
these,” Sanchez said. “There’s so much
waste with art supplies and office sup-
plies, I wanted to see what I can do with
them.”
Sanchez added that Post-its are easy to
carry around, and push the boundaries of
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The learning curve is just another in
a series for Sanchez. He is the new pro-
gram director of the Miss Bea Johnson
Fund, an Astoria Visual Arts program
that partners with Astoria and Knappa
high schools to help teens create art. The
role is an extension of Sanchez’s pre-
vious career as an English teacher and
coach at the Astoria high and middle
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