Skip to content

Art, Craft, & Design

A few sketches on the run

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Man playing harmonica on the 2 train:

Another man on the train:

A lady on the phone at Starbucks:

Dave, asleep on the bus, hiding from the light in his hoodie:

Also filed in Illustration, Sketching, Urban Sketches | | Comments (1)

Book Recommendation Bookmarks

Sunday, December 4, 2011

I went over to donate more books to Housing Works the other day, and of course got distracted shopping for books while I was there. It happens every time! I basically see Housing Works as my library – I borrow books, and through buying them and donating them back I help support people living with HIV/AIDS along the way. If I’ve got to have a book addiction, I may as well try to benefit others through it.

Whenever I see used books for sale, whether at Housing Works or stoop sales or anywhere else, I find myself tempted to pick out my favorites into a curated stack to nudge strangers towards them. When I mentioned this to a few friends later, it turned out that I’m not the only one!

So, why not? I threw together these book recommendation bookmarks to stick into used books I see for sale, but already own and love myself. My hope is that if I use these bookmarks, I will encourage strangers to read some of my favorite books, help support used bookstores generally, and have some interesting conversations along the way.

The bookmarks seem like a better way to satisfy that urge to help people find amazing books they might not notice otherwise, and to open the door to conversations with strangers about books we’ve both read! A little clearer and perhaps more useful than just reorganizing the stacks until entropy reasserts itself. Something that speaks to the next person who comes along.

No need to keep the fun for myself, though. You can download the full-sized, free PDF of my book-recommendation bookmarks to print out and use yourself here!

Have fun, read more, enjoy! Maybe I’ll bump into you at the Strand or Powell’s sometime.

Also filed in Books, Other Projects, Paper, Sketching | | Comments (0)

Recent sketches

Thursday, November 10, 2011

On my way to the train one morning a couple weeks ago, I saw this marvelous flock of pigeons on top of a gorgeous brownstone.

And here are some folks I saw on the subway over the past few weeks:

And more subway folks:

Still more subway folks, but these were done with a fountain brush pen:

Really cute kid I saw on the subway a few weeks ago:

(Hero M86 fountain pen with Noodler’s Kiowa Pecan ink; watercolors from my bestest little altoid tin palette)

Actually, on that note, this is the travel palette I built that I use nowadays:

I used hot glue to create 9 separate compartments in a teensy tiny mini Altoids tin, which I hot glued to a rectangle of cardboard.

(I also glued in a bit of scrap dry-erase board stuff left over from when we redid the upstairs hallway for mixing, but I don’t think that part is strictly necessary.)

I have a cool trio of primary colors (lemon yellow, scarlet lake, ultramarine), a warm trio of primary colors (indian yellow, permanent rose, and phthalo blue), and at the bottom as extras I have indigo and a bit of titanium white goache.

I keep a waterbrush in my pen case, and that’s it, easy and tiny.

It works basically like this, with the other end of the cardboard stuck between journal pages to hold the palette very conveniently in place for me:

View from The Elevated Acre at 55 Water St., NY, NY. With helicopters!

View when returning to the street from The Elevated Acre:

A lovely building just north of Union Square:

Also filed in Illustration, Sketching, Urban Sketches | | Comments (0)

Montreal sketches (September 24-27, 2011)

Thursday, November 10, 2011

I did this sketch with a Pilot Varsity fountain pen at the Old Port (Old City?) in Montreal when I was there to shoot a friend’s wedding, and finished it up with watercolor and a teensy bit of white jelly roll pen for the words:

I flew into Burlington, Vermont and then took greyhound to Berri-Uqam station in the middle of Montreal, on my friend’s recommendation. When I got to the station, I found this guy sleeping behind a row of benches. People sat in front of him, totally ignoring him. He looked more like a backpacker than a bum.

(Drawn in ink on a sketchbook page I’d pre-splattered with coffee.)

I sketched this next guy in the airport while waiting for my plane to fly back home yesterday, which was crazy delayed. A TSA agent leaned over to look at sketchbook and complimented me profusely, which was a delightful change from my usual TSA interactions.

(Sketched with a pilot varsity fountain pen and noodler’s heart of darkness ink, watercolor to finish, over a lightly pre-splattered page.)

Also filed in Illustration, Sketching, Travel, Urban Sketches | | Comments (2)

Churches of Park Slope

Thursday, November 10, 2011

I took a walk back on September 18th on my way to grab groceries, and sketched bits of the three churches on 7th Ave fairly close to my apartment. I really love how they turned out, especially when I used the waterbrush wash technique only for the windows in finishing them up!


Grace United Methodist Church


Old First Reformed Church

(My absolute favorite bit here is the birds who were hanging out in the window, where I did the wash around them to highlight them.)


Memorial Presbyterian Church

God, I’m so in love with my $13 Hero M86 fountain pen, and the fraction of my $1.50 sample of Noodler’s Kiowa Pecan ink that I stuck in there. I have a favorite sketching implement, all right! It’s such a weird, nifty little tool.

Also filed in Illustration, Sketching, Urban Sketches | | Comments (0)

TWA Flight Center at JFK’s Terminal 5

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The call usually comes out of nowhere.

“Want to go to the airport?” asks my brother.

“I’m sorry?”

“Terminal 5 is open to the public as part of Open House NY. It is never open to the public.”

Oh! Sure! So, it turned out that OHNY somehow managed to wrangle a few hours of public access to TWA Flight Center at JFK’s Terminal 5 yesterday. Who could resist?

It was like walking into the Enterprise!

Though it looked more like a Shadow ship from the outside.

Complete with all of New York’s finest shadowy people.

But really, pure scifi.

I did a few sketches while I was there, of course.

While Josh took photos of me sketching.

I was completely obsessed with that Vulcain clock in the center of the ceiling.

Such gorgeous curves, everywhere!

Now, THAT’S good design.

Airports bright with sinuous rills, as it were.

A gorgeous day, overall – Josh posed me out in the sunlight for one last shot of the day.

Also filed in Illustration, Photography, Photography - &c., Sketching, Urban Sketches | | Comments (0)

The Boggsville Boatel

Monday, October 3, 2011

A few weeks ago, my brother found Constance Hockaday‘s lecture at her Boggsville Boatel listed in last night’s Nonsense, told me he’d pick me up in ten minutes, and off we went!

I spent the whole time sketching into the dark – couldn’t really see how these sketches were working out until I got home to look at them indoors.

Here are some of the folks watching the lecture along with us. You can tell I was very into the neon “Boatel” sign that welcomed us when we arrived, and that I was still listening to what Constance was saying while I sketched!

You can see the full set of my Boggsville Boatel sketches here.

Also filed in Illustration, Sketching, Urban Sketches | | Comments (0)

Sketched a court officer at Mamaroneck Village Court

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Art neatly fills in those stolen moments of time around the edges of my legal practice. I sketched this court officer while waiting for my case to be called when I was out in Mamaroneck with a client this morning. Another attorney sitting next to me glanced at my sketchbook, leaned over, and whispered: “That’s not bad!”

Also filed in Illustration, Law, Sketching, Urban Sketches | | Comments (0)

Recent sketches

Monday, September 12, 2011

I just started blogging for Jux, a company that creates web tools that make it easy to blog/tweet/whatever big images splashed all across your screen in various nifty ways. It is pretty fun to play around with so far, actually – I used it to pull together the sketches I made while vending my glass jewelry at Dekalb Market yesterday. I shared a table with my friend Nicole, who runs GALA and was selling the cutest terrariums in teacups and lab glassware and antique lamps. Anyways, point being, you can check out my Dekalb Market sketches here!

Other than that, here are a few more:

Pen sketch with watercolor wash, done on August 31st out by the fountain at Grand Army Plaza (Brooklyn, NY). I had wandered out to sketch after seeing signs advertising a drum circle, but this fellow lying there reading was actually far more interesting. I met a photographer with a similar story, who sat next to me and took photos of this fellow while I sketched.

I did this next piece while waiting to see The Tennant with my brother on September 2nd, standing at the corner of W. 86th St. and Columbus Ave. I’d prepped a few pages of my sketchbook with some watercolor washes earlier in the week, to have available when I felt like drawing on top of them. Black brush pen done on location.

After reading this Urban Sketchers inspired review, I picked up a cheap Hero M86 fountain pen and filled it with the sample I ordered of Noodler’s Kiowa Pecan ink. The line variation I can get with that pen is so much fun! I used it for this next sketch of a stranger at the Tea Lounge, finished with a waterbrush wash.

Mike (my roadtrip companion) came to visit last week, and spent hours working on MIT Mystery Hunt puzzles with Dave. In the meantime, I sketched him with a dip pen Noodler’s Black Swan in Australian Roses ink. You can see the various false starts and tiny ear studies that littered my page before getting the sketch I liked in this image – I think it’s fun to see the joyous mess that well-used sketchbooks can really turn into sometimes, honestly.

Also filed in Glass, Illustration, Sketching, Urban Sketches | | Comments (0)

Sketches from these past few weeks

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

I’ve been sketching lately. I’ve focused more on sculptural work with glass and metal and fiber over the past few years, but this summer I started feeling that urge to polish my illustration skills and play with 2d media again.

I fell in love with Urban Sketchers, and have been carrying sketching supplies around NYC for the past few weeks and having fun submitting scans of my work to their Flickr group.

I should really post my sketches here regularly, from now in. In the meantime, let’s catch up! I have three favorites this week so far.

Dave finally managed to sit still long enough for me to get a rough sketch with him with my old dip pen and the sample of Noodler’s Walnut ink I picked up from Goulet, finished with a waterbrush wash:

While waiting for a court appearance in L&T court in Manhattan, I sketched this view of that charming building in Columbus Park (Chinatown, NYC). I used a Pilot Varsity fountain pen that I’d previously disassembled and refilled with a sample of Noodler’s Cayenne ink, again finished with a waterbrush wash):

This gentleman was kind of enough to give me permission to stare at him across a very tiny table in Starbucks and sketch him one evening. I used a Pilot Varsity fountain pen that I’d previously disassembled and refilled with a 1:1 blend of samples of Noodler’s Sequoia and Brown inks (neither of which did I like very much on their own), again finished with a waterbrush wash):

And some pieces from last week:

I saw this homeless man sleeping outside a Starbucks window right by Union Square about a week and a half ago. He sat up at some point while I was inking and painting this, but didn’t make eye contact or speak to me at all. I gave him all the cash I had on me at the time as soon as I was done.

(Pencil sketch, inked with a brush pen, pencil erased, watercolor washes to finish the piece.)

After finishing up an appearance in NY County Supreme Court on a matrimonial matter last week, I sat for a bit in that little outdoor food court area by Centre and Reade and drew the Surrogate’s Court.

(Pencil sketch, inked with a fine-tipped waterproof pen, pencil erased, waterbrush washes and just a touch of watercolor and white gel pen to finish the piece.)

I’m sort of ridiculously fond of this fellow I sketched sitting in a little city park during lunchtime last week, with assorted pigeons.

(Pilot varsity fountain pen.)

And this last one, from a photo I took in Rhyolite, Nevada during this summer’s road trip.

(Pencil sketch, inked with a brush pen, pencil erased, watercolor washes to finish the piece.)

Also filed in Illustration, Sketching, Urban Sketches | | Comments (0)