Cinching the Towline

Neighborhood Bar

When the P&G Cafe was pushed out of its decades-old roost on Amsterdam Avenue the street lost one of its most evocative neon landmarks. Happily, the bar still thrives a few blocks uptown.

Central Park Sunset #11

"Conservatory Water," the gemlike pond below the "castle" -- the old Central Park weather station -- can seem like a magical realm with a summer sunset behind it.

Belleclaire Hotel

Under its coat of grime, the Belleclaire is a truly classy building. Opened as a hotel in 1903, it was the first major work by one of New York's great architects, Emery Roth.

Summer Reflections, Central Park West

From a summer snapshot, with the windows of the Art Deco Century Apartments giving back images of Central Park's sky & sunlit trees.

Under the FDR Drive

East River with Power Plant

Sunset on W 86th Street

Morning, Amsterdam Ave.

Mickey

My sister-in-law's beagle.

Columbus Circle, pre-Time Warner

But just barely.

Cars

Draw the city today and you're drawing cars, cars, cars. A hundred years ago it was horses. Who's better off?

"Ansonia Tower" (detail)

A work-in-progress, in pen & wash with watercolor highlights, to be donated to the Computer School auction next month; I'm waiting to add some leaves and buds, which I hope will show up in a few more days. The Ansonia is the great Upper West Side landmark described by novelist Saul Bellow as looking "like a baroque palace from Prague or Munich enlarged a hundred times." 

"Pears on a Plate"

This started out to be a simple pencil drawing in B&W, but one of the pears turned out to have other ideas . . . .

"Orange Tenement" (detail)

This is one of those 1890s Romanesque Revival apartment buildings you still find up & down the Upper West Side, clad in ochre-glazed brick. When it catches the morning rays, the whole front glows like something alive. Anyway, I'm a sucker for orange. 

Never any problem finding "something to draw" on Broadway. Just look up!

"Fire Escapes, E. 67th Street"

Often, the backs of buildings seem to have more character & interest than the fronts. This view is from the rear of my wife's workplace -- the public library on East 67th Street. 

"Red Tenement, Amsterdam Avenue" (detail)

I pass by this old tenement building almost every day. It's shabby and its coat of cool red paint has ben flaking away for decades, but the flow of morning sunlight through the top-floor windows still gives it a compelling charm. 

Bookshop sketches

Another great vantage point for sketchers -- a seat (if you can find one!) in your local Barnes & Noble. It's delightful, the variety of poses people will unconsciously strike when absorbed in reading.

A pair of portraits

I haven't painted a lot of face studies lately, but it's another wonderful genre that I'd like to explore sometime soon. These are from an Art Students League workshop several years back conducted by master portraitist Ray Kinstler. 

"Wildflowers, Central Park"

This is an old & somewhat overworked pastel, cropped a little at the right edge for this post.  

"Dusk, Summer - West Village" (detail)

At sunset in New York, especially in summer, you have to fight the temptation to overload your palette with sugary colors. I think I resisted here, more or less. 

"Stuyvesant Square"

It was one of the hottest days of the summer -- well over 100 degrees -- but under its heavy foliage Stuyvesant Square offered a remarkably cool oasis. This scene was done in Gregg Kreutz's cityscape painting workshop. 

More subway sketches

Some dead white Romans

. . . from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Will & Peggy

These are from a while ago. The nice thing about unconscious models is they don't move around a lot, and they usually don't complain much about keeping still.  

A couple of still lifes

Subway sketches

If you're looking for interesting faces to draw, look no further than New York's rapid transit system -- it's a little United Nations on wheels, where most of the subjects are too absorbed in their own affairs to even notice you drawing them.

Tae kwon do kids

Snow in the woods, Austerlitz, NY

These were fun, but there's too much white!  Most snow actually takes on tons of colors from the surrounding environment. Doesn't matter too for a sketch, though, I guess. 

Lynchburg again

Lynchburg sketches

Here's a couple of scenes from that charming southern village where Peggy spent her charming southern childhood: Lynchburg, Virginia.