Dry Dock 1

Dry Dock 1 is the oldest dry dock in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the third-oldest in the United States. It is now the last dry dock operating in Brooklyn, now operated by GMD Shipyard, and one of very few in the area.

The site was first surveyed in 1826, with construction beginning in 1841. It was completed in 1851 at a cost of precisely $2,146,255.36. It is constructed from 23,000 cubic yards of hand-cut and hand-sanded blocks of granite excavated from quarries in Connecticut, Maine, Staten Island, and upstate New York.

Though modest in size by today’s standards, at the time it was a major engineering feat, being the first large project to use a steam-powered pile driver, and utilizing the largest pumping engine built at the time. Over the 20 years it took to construct, the project ran through at least three civil engineers and had to contend with a variety of setbacks, including 75’ deep quicksand, underground springs, and a faulty dam design which flooded the worksite.

Ships built and serviced there included The Niagara, which laid the first transatlantic cable; Halstead’s Folly, the prototype of the first submarine; The Maine, the destruction of which triggered the Spanish-American War; and The Monitor, the first iron-clad, steam-powered warship of the US Navy during the Civil War. It was declared a New York City Landmark in 1975.

There are several working docks and piers at the Navy Yard, most of which are off-limits to enter and not easily observed, but there's a handy viewing platform overlooking Dry Dock 1. It's the one spot where you can view the goings-on pretty up close and personal. 

Ships are no longer built there, but it is still used for maintenance, repair and inspection of tugboats, barges, and other smaller vessels. Two ships were serviced while I was there; the tugboat Evening Light and the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Dauntless.

Here's a cool time-lapse video showing this dry dock in action.

Inktober Week 3

Week 3. I missed a day in there.

Inktober 2019 Week 2

Week 2

Strange & Unusual Aquatic Beasts And Other Ancient Secrets And Mysteries Of The Deep

Last Christmas, my wife got me a sketchbook from Brooklyn Art Library as part of The Sketchbook Project. The Art Library is in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and they'll send you a blank sketchbook that you fill as you please, return, and is incorporated into their collection.

It took me awhile to think of what I wanted to do with it. I knew I wanted to do something different than my usual urban sketching. Eventually, I decided to do something related to mythology. Something made me think of depictions of sea serpents on Old World maps, and that expanded to various water-based mythological and folkloric creatures from various cultures. The result was Strange & Unusual Aquatic Beasts And Other Ancient Secrets And Mysteries Of The Deep.

Here's part of it. You can see the entire sketchbook here. If you're in Williamsburg, you can see the actual book at their library, and I just heard that it's part of the collection that's going on tour to Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

Life Drawing at NYU

Life drawing from a couple of sessions at NYU Tisch Department of Design, where I studied lighting design. These were pretty casual sessions for alumni. Boy, am I rusty at figure drawing!

The drawings on the bottom are on toned paper with black and white charcoal. Just trying something new. New for me, that is.

Inktober 2019 week 1

October is Inktober, where the challenge is to do an ink drawing a day. I skipped it last year as I was busy wrapping up my Brooklyn Navy Yard project (which still has some work to be posted!), but I'm trying it again this year. I've already missed one day. Some of these are OK, and some are dashed off too quickly just to satisfy the demand of one-a-day.