THE HIGH LINE - OCTOBER 18 2014

Sketchers sketching the High Line (34th Street)

View east from the High Line bleachers (34th Street)

High Line view south from the bleachers (34th Street)

Lunch at New York Burger Co./High Line and skyline west from New York Burger Co.

View east from the High Line

THE RUBIN MUSEUM - OCT 11 2014

Shiva Bhairava mask

Bodhisattva

 

Museum entrance

Crawling Along: High Line, Saturday, October 18, 2014

On Saturday I joined the NYC Urban Sketchers (as part of the 45th USK Sketchcrawl) at the newest section of the High Line. We attracted a lot of attention as we sketched. Usually no one notices but on this day it was as if there was a giant neon lit arrow pointing at us.

Of course, it could be that we were all in a big clump instead of scattered. We must have looked like One Big Super Duper Sketchbook with human appendages.

To the west was the Hudson River, New Jersey and lots of boats. To the east were skyscrapers and zillions of cranes, not to mention an equal number of railroad tracks covered with trains snaking their way, from and to NJ, under us, into the back door, (Long Island trains go in the front door, ahem, just IMHO), of Penn Station.

Stomachs growling, we all walked the High Line to 23rd Street and sat at one big table.

Back to the High Line, passing an accident - guy drove into one of the girders holding up the whole shebang - and some of us headed north and others went south. I had a little adventure, a Spectacular Fall, not too long after I finished this sketch. Everything was still in working order so a few of us continued walking southward to the end/beginning and then turned around and retraced our steps.

Like clockwork, all the scattered sketchers converged at a preordained local bar and there was lots of chatter while we did show & tell with our sketches. It took awhile.

Process:

iPad; New Trent Arcadia stylus.

Apps Used:

#1&2: Gridded notebook and Pilot V-ball pen, sketches photographed using iPad and then imported into ArtRage for painting. 

#3&4: Zen Brush and ArtRage

#5: Sketch Club

High Line Hijinx - October 18, 2014

Urban Sketchers ventured on to the newly opened third phase of the celebrated High Line on Manhattan's western waterfront. It was very crowded with sightseers, especially the southern end, but there were plenty of opportunities to sketch.

Starting at the 34th Street entrance, we sketched at bleachers made of huge timbers overlooking rail yards to the east and the West Side Highway and the Hudson to the west.

Walking further down the trail we encountered more people and interesting design elements featuring plants suited to the dry, windy conditions of the path.

As things got busier we started to focus on the various buildings along the trailway, including these toward the southern terminus.

Lunch was at NY Burger Co., and the throw down at the end of the day was at an Irish pub, Billy Marks West.  Wonderfully cool weather and no rain made it a great day for sketching!

Jim W.

The Don Colley Show

This is a guy that I've wanted to meet for at least the last four years.  To actually see his sketch books was amazing.  Even better was having the space to ask him any question.

Don Colley with his Sketchbooks spread out all around him.

The conversation was far ranging and fascinating.  Don was generous with his time and very knowledgeable.

What I wanted to find out was if using Faber Castell markers was a direction worth pursuing.  My history with tone starts with pencils.  I found laying in tones  using pencils to be slow and tedious and unsuited for Urban Sketching.  There were benefits including accuracy and erasability, but I was still drawn to the idea of finding a quicker way to block-in mass.

Watercolor provides a faster way to establish tones, but has it's own quirks.  I does unexpected things and requires great care.  It provides happy accidents, and also disappointing accidents.  Many of the colors are toxic which is something worth remembering.  It has some potential for erasability, but it's somewhat limited and requires high quality paper.  The last important thing for me is that to get rich darks requires work.   For me, it's rarely achieved in the first pass.  Going back to deepen the tones runs the risk of overworking the picture.  In other words watercolor is a good solution - but not an ideal solution.

Don Sketch at Lunch

Don made a great case for why the Faber Castelln - Pitt Brush Pens might be a very good alternative.  I could see the versatility Don got from the medium and loved the richness of the darks.  They are non-toxic and very portable.  There's no worry about cleaning brushes, carrying water, bringing water cups, cleaning your palette and trying to keep your water clean.  You can get a very fine point but can also cover broad areas very quickly.

I'm going to try to explore them more but I'd have to say my first attempts using the three samples we got, were very tentative and produced mixed results:

A Guy Sipping Soup at the Next Table

A Man Napping on one of the Last Warm Days of Autumn

Quicky People Sketches

Don as I'll Remember him Best -
Wearing his War Paint
to demo the planes of the human head and
the non-toxic properties of the Pitt Markers)

Power of Pink: NYC

I was not able to join the group today, as I had a school commitment, but on my way to FIT, I did capture an emotional, powerful NYC moment. You can read more about it on my blog. Below are my drawings. Hope to join you all again soon...

Thursday, October 16, 2014

After the Don Colley workshop we ate lunch outdoors and then stayed put and sketched. At first it was cool and sunny but soon the wind picked up quite a bit and materials started flying. I tried out some of the new Faber-Castell materials – red, pink and blue water-based markers.

View north at outdoor plaza between 34th and 33rd Sts east of 8th Ave 

View of construction site from outdoor plaza between 29th and 30th Sts between 6th and 7th Aves