RAMBLING  SKETCHER

The annoying thing about commissions is that frequently, the painting is being gifted and I can't share it until the recipient sees it. In one particular case last month, a commission I did was being gifted to a whole LOT of people! A member of the company of Frozen on Broadway contacted me about doing a painting for her to use as an opening night card for the cast and crew. Painting of a theatre marquee? You know I was up for it (especially because you know I love a good noc

Since I'm working tomorrow, today was my only free day and I had a LOT of chores, errands, and work to do at home, so sadly I had to miss the march in favor of getting things done. I decided I'd give myself a little time between errands to do a quick sketch. After dropping my compost off at the Union Square Greenmarket, I carefully skirted everyone selling plants (I managed to not come home with any new ones! It's hard, those tiny cacti are tough to resist!), honey, baked goo

The New York Public Library by Bryant Park is an iconic NYC landmark. I haven't painted the inside in ages (here) and I had a half hour after painting inside Grand Central last week to capture it. Like Grand Central, I ended up using the exact angle I used before!

I know I JUST SKETCHED the Flatiron Building, but it's so hard to resist! I remembered while I was doing that nocturne it's been a while since I sketched it in daylight, so a return trip was in order! This was the same day I painted Grand Central (in my last post) It was all fine at first, while the sun was out, but every time a cloud came along, it dropped several degrees and I became very chilly! I was happy to have done the one sketch outside, but even happier to turn indo

Yesterday I went out sketching (more blog posts to come!), but after one outdoor sketch I discovered it was colder than I'd like and decided to turn to an indoor location. As I also wanted to stop by an Apple store, I decided to go to one of my favorite places to sketch indoors in NYC: Grand Central Terminal. I also decided to sketch from the Apple Store Balcony! I did a sketch from almost the same exact spot a couple of years ago, so it was time to revisit! Most recent above

I realized when I did my recent Hearst Tower post that I didn't have a sketch of the outside of the building. So, when I found myself near the Hearst Tower with forty minutes to spare, I decided to give it a go! All of the white and black pen happened indoors, it was chilly and taking forever to dry outside and I didn't want to be late! Hazards of drawing on location! ;)

I was dropping off a commission last week with a customer (you'll have to stay tuned for a post on that in a few weeks!) and decided to take advantage of the nice weather and paint a nocturne. I've been thinking about doing a night painting of Carnegie Hall for ages (seriously, how pretty is this building!?) but haven't gotten around to it. So when I realized the other view I'd been considering capturing (Times Square from far up Broadway) was obscured with scaffolding for bl

A few weeks ago, NYC Urban Sketchers took a (now annual) trip to Hearst Tower. One of our number works there and is able to get us exclusive access to the gorgeous and usually private atrium. The Hearst Building was originally erected in 1928 at just six stories tall. It was originally meant to act as the base of a much taller building, but when the stock market crashed all bets were off. It took nearly eighty years, but it was finally expanded into an iconic skyscraper that