The Lucky Laundromat

The Lucky Laundromat, in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.

Providence and Portsmouth

I spent the last two weekends touring with the Bang Group dance company to Providence and New Hampshire/Maine. I've been lighting their holiday show Nut/Cracked for the last couple of years. They're in Boston this week and you can catch it in New York City at the new Flea Theatre.

Providence

Sheperd Company Builidng. This building in downtown Providence used to be Sheperd Stores, which was once one of the largest department stores in New England. The pillar seen in the window is covered with fashion advertisements. It currently housed state offices and local colleges.

Turks Head Building. I went to college in Providence, and always wondered what the deal was with this building. This giant, somewhat racist Ottoman head certainly makes it one of the most WTF subjects I've drawn. (What you can't see in this sketch is that the Turk has fangs.) When it was completed in 1913, it was the tallest building in Providence. A shopkeeper on the ground floor installed a figurehead from the ship Sultan above the entrance. It was later destroyed in a storm, and this stone replica was installed. I was pleased that I finally got the curved architecture almost right; I always struggle with that.

One of the interesting things about Providence is the remaining defunct street furniture, ghosts of the city's past. This tower on Weybosset Street is the remnants of a comfort station that was torn down in 2011. Now it's just a sort of traffic divider. The old night deposit box is outside the Union Trust Company Building on Westminster and Dorrance. The bank is long gone; now it's a restaurant and residences. But this night deposit box remains. Do businesses even use night deposit boxes any more?

Portsmouth, NH

We performed in Kittery, Maine, but stayed across the river in Portsmouth, NH. The World War I Memorial Bridge spans the Piscataqua River between the states. It is a vertical-lift bridge. The center span rises up to allow boat traffic through.

The North Church. The church, constructed in 1854, is one of the main landmarks in Portsmouth, visible from across the city. A winter storm was coming in as I sketched it. I completed it later with photo reference I took. I got the corbels, the protruding support structures, on the lower part, all wrong.

Windsor Terrace House

A house in Windsor Terrace. I was happy with the drawing, but got the color and values of the light and shadow wrong. Too heavy. Oh well.

Echeverri's Palace

For the past several years, I've spent a few summer weeks in the Lower East Side working on a festival for Clubbed Thumb theater company. Around the corner, at Avenue B and East 4th St., stands this distinctive building. I finally got around to drawing it this summer, and then discovered the great story behind it.

This Village Voice article by Jess McHugh from 2016 tells the story. The building is owned by Antonio Echeverri, a Colombian immigrant who worked numerous jobs including maintaining buildings and saved for 20 years before purchasing this property in 1992. It was dilapidated, infested with vermin and drug dealers, and close to being condemned. Echeverri rehabilitated the building himself. "Now it's a palace. It's a paradise," he says in the article. Echeverri repaints the facade every five years, and is continually working on the building. Even the tree encasements on the sidewalk are in this distinctive style. “Every mind is its own world. I like to see things that are different from my everyday surroundings. I don’t like plain brick.”

Not only did he do the renovation himself, but he even mixes the paint himself, and casts the concrete ornamental sculptures himself, as seen on the East 4th Street entrance.

This creative attention to detail extends to the interior, a bit of which you can see in that Voice article. I'd love to get a look inside someday. 

“It gives me joy to see that people come by to admire the building, especially the door,” Echeverri says. “The door has stars, the sun and moons on it. We’re all part of the same universe, and the door is where I capture mine.”

Taco Airstream

This 1960s Airstream trailer has been converted into the dining area of a Mexican restaurant near the South Street Seaport.

Pedro and Ruby

This week's life drawing. There were two models at this session, Pedro and Ruby. I think it was Ruby. It might have been Rosie. They were both very good models, and it's always a challenge to do a pair, so it was a really good session.

Met Life Clocktower

The Met Life Tower is a building in the Flatiron District. The tower constructed atop an existing building in 1909 and was the world's tallest building until 1913, when the Woolworth Building surpassed it.

I've probably seen this building from the ground hundreds of times without paying it any special attention, but a few months ago I had a two-day job in a neighboring building. I was working on the 17th floor, and the cafeteria was directly across from the clock on the tower. I was able to hang out for awhile when my work was done to draw them. It was something to see up that close. Each clock is 26.5 feet in diameter, the numbers are four feet tall, and the minute hands weigh half a ton each. It's amazing to see the detail the put into these clocks which are not at all discernible from the ground. The site Scouting NY has a look at the interior of the clock tower and its mechanism.

I did one drawing each day. The second one is much better I think; the first was sort of a warm up.

Holly

Drawings from life drawing at Minerva's Studio last week. The model's name was Holly.

Quick sketches:

Longer poses:

Dugong Vent

Structures like this are all over New York City, but are so non-descript that they're easily overlooked. It turns out these mysterious things vent gases from the city's underground infrastructure, subways and utility tunnels and the like. 

In this post, Forgotten New York claims that this model is called The Dugong (OBGUN-69a), but I think that whole post is a gag. I like the name, though.

Claudia

I was back at life drawing at Minerva's Studio after a little break. I was fortunate that the model was Claudia. She's a great model who I've drawn once or twice in the past, and she writes a great blog called Museworthy.

Quick warm-ups.

That one on the left got all out of proportion.

Longer poses:

Inktober week 4

The final days of the Inktober Challenge. I missed another day, but the next day I did two, of my twins.

Here's them all together. I'm pleased with some, some were dashed off because of time constraints. But overall, a really good exercise.

The Scariest Monster

Every year I try to do a Halloween drawing. Hopefully, this particular nightmare will soon come to an end!

Inktober Week 4

Week 4 of the Inktober Challenge.