Sometimes you get a very simple salad. Iceberg lettuce, sliced tomato, and a perfect vinaigrette. Other times, you’re served a mountain of ingredients. Carrots, onions, garbanzo beans, cucumbers, crutons, 6 kinds of lettuce, beets, artichokes, olives, walnuts, and on and on. This is a good analogy to explain the drawing you’re looking at. My friends and I each drew the same gazelle at the Natural History Museum and each of us walked away with a simple salad. But I went home and added all kinds of extra ingredients because I’m trying to overcompensate for some kind of inner feeling of mediocracy. So I end up with this enourmous salad. It’s family style, so help yourself.
Juicy Fruit
Before I get back from Europe and have a chance to scan my new drawings, I’ll be posting a few I did this winter in the Natural History museum. I did this sketch demonstrating to my art mates that you can deviate from the colors that you see in real life.
Marielle Durant
I got a call from the great French illustrator, Marielle Durand. She was in town for a few days and wanted to draw with me. We met in Central Park with the NYC Urban Sketchers at the boat house in Harlem. Being too slow a drawer, I chose to just sketch the boat house in the lower corner of the page because I knew Marielle would be done 5 times faster than I would take. I added the animals at a later date, drawing with my homies. The skyline and sunrise I did at an even later date. There you have it.
Leaves
These two leaves on the ground demanded to be painted. I usually draw but these guys were insistent that I break out the old paint tubes to see if I still have any skill left.
Not Normal
I draw what I see and I see some really weird things. Thankfully I’m not what you would call, normal. This sketch is a combo of museum of natural history, botanical gardens, and a few photographs I searched out. My wife and I have been spending weeks in Europe on trains, planes, and automobiles. Managed to do quite a lot of drawings while there. I’ll be posting them soon when I return and scan the hell out of them.
Oil And Vinegar
A drawing of a vegan’s best friends.
My Hood
When I go draw with my friends, we end up taking long subway rides to get to far away museums, botanical gardens, or groovy neighborhoods. I actually had the painfully obvious idea of drawing with my pals in my own neighborhood. It’s where we all meet anyway. This little bodega happens to be right next to the diner we get breakfast in. It’s as if I just saw it for the first time. Sometimes it’s hard to see what’s right in front of one’s own face. Now I look at my own neighborhood of 16 years, differently.
Three Masks
I wonder what the artists who made these phenomenal masks would have thought of my wacky drawing. I’d assume we’d be copacetic.
Cats
My friend Stephen Petronis and I were in the Botanical Gardens drawing the last vestiges of tulips before they perished. I knew the flowers alone on the page would not be enough to make an interesting drawing. At least that’s how I saw it. A few felines seemed to do the trick. I sometimes work on a drawing for a few days, constantly trying to make it feel a bit more compelling. I have an inner critic that lets me know if something is done or if I must keep drawing elements to help it to its conclusion. Nothing is planned out in advance but I do have a moment when I say to myself, it’s finished.
Monkeyman
Self portrait. When I don’t shave for a few days, I get a bit scruffy. At least I got the likeness perfect.
Funky Chinatown
I went to East Chinatown with my friend, Steve to draw a bit of architecture. It’s not so easy to find a psychic storefront above a print shop with a liquor store and bong shop on either side but we did it. Both of us sat in the dirt divider in between two bike paths so we didn’t get plowed by electric bicycles while sketching. I was unable to do this amount of drawing detail onsite. So, I put in quite a few hours of noodling and adding detail when I was home the next few days. This part of town still retains its 1980s funk.
Citifield
I went to my first baseball game of the season. Watched the Mets beat the Phillies. I spent most of the game intently sketching the stadium. The people around me were very amused. They all wanted to know if I traveled to all the other stadiums to draw them too. I said that was too ambitious. I confessed that I just search for stupid things to draw. Everyone understood that. Notice I drew each individual blade of grass with a green pen. I just liked the look no matter how much time it wasted.
Draw-A-Thon
I went to the High School of Art & Design 21st Annual Draw-A-Thon which is held in the school. The gym and cafeteria were filled with little stages where 15 models were posing either nude or in costume. It started at 10 in the morning and went until 7PM. I put in about 6 hours. I met incredible artists and teachers. There were some excellent student painters as well. This was the first pose I drew. This model seemed to be 7 feet tall.
