RAMBLING  SKETCHER

In honor of going out of town this weekend, via Grand Central, here is the first sketch I did inside the terminal! I was on my way back into the city from work in the Bronx, and I had an hour to spare before meeting my sister in the theatre district. I decided I could sketch for forty minutes and then take the S over. I still beat her to the restaurant by two minutes! I probably worked on this for about an hour in the end; I did some finishing touches after I left.

Yesterday was another NJ transit commute for me, and at the stop before mine, right after I finished a sketch that didn't go especially well, I noticed this guy with a huge bunch of red, mylar heart balloons. I got a quick sketch down in about a minute before we got to my stop and finished the shading at Penn Station. It's entitled "Man Who Found Terrific Post-Valentine's Day Balloon Sale." Alternate titles include: "Man Who is a Week Late," "Man Who Only Buys Balloons On Sal

In honor of spending a chunk of my week in Connecticut, here's Hartford in August! I went with my friend E (one of the friends I was staying wtih this week, in fact) to a sketch event in Bushnell Park. We found a bench with a great view and had a lovely time catching up and sketching!

This week is sadly lacking in subway drawings, I was at a loss because I was in Connecticut with no subway! I was staying with my friends E and B in Hartford while I was working on painting the back wall of a theatre from painted black brick to look like it hadn't been painted (no....really.). They have a great apartment, and I started drawing this one evening after work. There was no one in the chair when I started drawing, and B was warned that if he sat in the chair while

It happened! Today was the annual NYC Urban Sketchers Portrait event! And I survived! I was pretty happy with my sketches (worth the practice). There were 18 "official" sketchers, and we went through and everyone had a chance to be the model and sit still for ten minutes while the rest of the sketchers frantically tried to get their face on the paper (provided for us, so it all matches). Here's a photo of the final grid...everyone did a great job of working "bold;" we had bee

Luckily, when you are a scenic artist and tell your friends at work you're practicing ten minute portraits, they are pretty OK with you using them as subjects and don't think it's weird. Or if they do, they keep it to themselves, which is nice. I call this series "Guess who's on their phone"

I wanted to practice more ten-minute portraits last night, but as my internet was out and I've taken most of my photos off of my computer, the only easily accessible portrait photos were from a friend's wedding in November (I was in the wedding party and have the full file of professional photos they had taken), so I did a handful of those! Mixed success, but I timed myself more carefully and definitely learned some things. One of those things is that 11 minutes seems like a

The rest of the week in subway drawings: This one I did half from my head...despite the subway car being pretty empty, a man stood directly in front of me (also oddly close to me, so his butt was in my face and I couldn't see around him. Almost drew his butt instead but I decided to power through this one instead. This unfinished one ended up being my favorite, someone stood between me and the subject so I couldn't finish but I liked what I had down when I had to stop.

Cheating and backdating this post because I didn't have internet and couldn't post last night. Despite the frigid, face-numbing weather I'm departing from tradition and not sharing a warm-weather worshipping watercolor. This one was done in November in the NY Library, in my watercolor Moleskine. I was painting in half light and remember being very surprised when I saw it in full light that it was actually pretty OK.

I did these, continuing trying out my new brush pen. Working without erasing continues to be a challenge but I thought it would be good practice for the portrait party (I've decided drawing in pencil takes too long so I'm going straight to ink. Yikes!). The two portraits are from photos, and the drill was drawn on a break at work (it was on the table in the breakroom. I still don't know why.)