Morgan Roadster

I don't know much about cars, but I know a sexy ride when I see it. This is a  Morgan Roadster. Morgan is a British manufacturer, and apparently Morgan car enthusiasts refer to them as "Moggies."

I saw this car parked on the street by Fort Greene Park. When I first moved to this area just over a decade ago, you would not have seen this. I had a friend who had an old Honda Civic stolen in this neighborhood. A Honda Civic!

Manhattan Bridge

The Manhattan Bridge doesn't get much attention in the popular imagination. The Brooklyn Bridge is a world-famous icon of New York City. The Queensboro Bridge gets its moment every time they make a new Spider-Man adaptation, as they re-create the scene from Amazing Spider-Man #121 when the Green Goblin tosses Peter Parker's girlfriend off the bridge (In that original comic book, though, she dies!). Even the Verrazano Bridge to Staten Island gets its moment in the spotlight once a year at the start of the New York Marathon. But no one pays much attention to the Manhattan Bridge.

I love the Manhattan Bridge, though. I spend a lot of time near it in DUMBO. I like its dull blue steel color. I love the complexity of its structure and engineering coupled with the intricacy of its Beaux-Arts architecture, and overlaid with a haphazard, utilitarian spider-web of pipes and electrical cables and other infrastructural gack. It's not so pleasant to walk or bike across, because every five minutes the subway thunders by mere feet from you. On the other hand, unlike the beloved Brooklyn Bridge, it's not completely clogged with tourists, and the view is just as good, if not better.

Here's a bunch of sketches of aspects of the bridge that I've done over the past couple of months.

On the walkway, by the Brooklyn-side arch

Arch and suspension, Brooklyn side.

Giant cable anchor

Under the bridge at Sands St.

 Top of the anchorage at Water St. and Adams St.

Balustrades at Manhattan Bridge Brooklyn Plaza. According to architects Saratoga Associates, it is "a bold, graphic space that serves as a convenient resting spot for pedestrians." Also, a homeless guy in a red shirt lives there.

"Manual Dry Standpipe INL Manifold Brooklyn Bound Roadway. Fire Dept. Use Only"

Memento Mori

You might be asking yourself, why is this girl chilling with a skeleton?

Well, here’s the thing. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been attending a class at Spring Street Studio. That’s one of the places I usually go for drop-in figure drawing sessions, but this is actually a class (sorta), focusing on human anatomy. These drawings are from the first session I went to. Minerva Durham, the instructor, had us draw the full female figure posed with a skeleton, explaining to us that this type of image was called “Memento Mori.”

Memento mori is a Latin phrase which translates as “Remember you must die.” It supposedly derives from ancient Rome, when military generals would, during their victory parades, be trailed by one of their slaves who would be tasked with repeating this phrase to him as a means of reminding him that although this was his day of glory, his eventual death might come at any time. I can imagine that that would be a job a slave would secretly relish. “Remember you must die, muthafucka. Thas right.”

As an artistic genre, it initially came to prominence in Christian art and architecture, as a humbling reminder of the transience of earthly existence.  As the early Christian theologian Tertullian wrote in Apolegeticus: "Respice post te! Hominem te esse memento! Memento mori!": "Look behind you! Remember that you are but a man! Remember that you'll die!" Tertullian was a real buzzkill at parties. You will see this theme in much creepy Medieval and Renaissance Christian art, including cadaver tombs, chapels made of bones, portraits of people holding skulls, and the genre of danse macabre. Here’s some examples:

Hans Holbein, 1538

Hans Memling, 1485

 

Thomas Smith self-portrait, ca. 1680

This class exercise did not have any theological point; it was merely to get us to visualize the placement and movement of bone structure in the figure. But I had never heard of this phrase or this whole category of artistic tradition. If only I had received training in the arts at an elite Ivy League school, then I would know these things!             Oh, wait . . . No, the visual arts program that granted me a degree didn’t teach me about momento mori. But they didn’t teach me human anatomy, either, so there you go.

 

By the way, she was not posing with a model skeleton. Rather, there was a second model, an older man, who we were  to visually translate into skeletal form. I believe he was the same as this model, who I drew in a sketchpad some years ago.

 

Speaking of Death . . .

Two days ago, Joe Kubert passed away at the age of 85. Every comic book reader must know who he is. He began drawing comics professionally at the age of 12 in 1938, the year Superman debuted, and was still working to this day. In fact, a new anthology of his work had just been announced a few weeks ago. So he had been an artistic presence in American comics for literally its entire history, and if you’ve looked at a rack of comic books at any point in the past 74 years, you’d have seen his work. There are still a few guys from the Golden Age years who show up at conventions to sell sketches and prints and memorabilia, but I can’t think of anyone else from that period who is still actively working.

Kubert had a very distinct style. Even as a child, before I was really aware of individual artists, I could identify a Kubert cover. His compositions were dynamic and fluid. His figures were classically idealized – tall and muscular men and curvaceous women – but his sketchy linework rendered them sinewy and organic. Even his superheroes seemed more grounded than those of other artists. For this reason, he seemed more at home with more realistic genres, particularly the war stories with which he became most identified. Some of the earliest comics I remember were drawn by him. I distinctly remember these covers of Tarzan, as well as the cover to the deeply weird “Super Dictionary.”

I never really had a lot of Kubert work in my collection. By the time I was really into comics, he was mostly doing war comics like Sgt. Rock and Enemy Ace, which weren’t my thing. But I always really dug his art when I saw it. In recent years, he had written and illustrated a couple of graphic novels. I thought his writing was, well, not so good, but they were still great to look at. Like I said, he was still going strong producing material, and there was no public indication that he was in poor health, so despite his age it was a surprise to hear the news of his death. Rest in peace, Joe Kubert, and momento mori, everybody.

Sleeping Lisa

You know what makes for a handy model? A sleeping wife. Especially one who zonks out on the couch so deeply that she doesn't move for hours. Perfectly still pose, held for as long as you need, in the convenience of your own home, and free to boot!

Here's another one I did, a few years back. Same couch.

Thanks, sweetheart!

Montreal

The wife and I went to Montreal last week. It was my first visit to that city and I really liked it. It's an vibrant, active city, but also really chill and relaxed. We ate a lot of great food, though now that I've had it, I think poutine is overrated. Everyone was nice. Hardly anyone honks their horn, no one jaywalks, and bicyclists obey traffic rules. (It's for that reason that I think the bike rental plan they're about to implement here in NYC works great in Montreal but won't work here. In New York, everyone drives, bikes, and walks like an asshole.) There are kiosks with maps all over the place, so you can always find your way around. Everything sounds better in French. And the architecture is beautiful. I could have spent days walking around, drawing buildings.

These first four drawings are done in pencil in my 9X12 sketchbook, and the rest in pen in my small pocket sketchbook.

We went because my wife was competing in the Montreal International Dragon Boat Race Festival. Dragon boat is a form of Chinese boat racing, sort of like crew, except with paddling instead of rowing. It was held at the Olympic Basin at the Parc Jean-Drapeau. Lisa's team won two gold medals and a silver!

Dragon boat racing has a really interesting history. Popular legend holds that it commemorates a poet and statesman in Ancient China named Qu Yuan, who committed suicide to protest war and the corruption of the government. He waded into the Miluo River, weighted down by stones, and drowned himself. Upon learning of his protest, the local villagers raced out in their boats to try to save him and/or recover his body. They threw rice in the water to feed the fish, so they wouldn't eat his body, and banged on drums to ward off evil spirits.I don't think there's much anti-war or good-government sentiments in the current races, but it's a cool story.

Taiko drumming is Japanese, not Chinese, but whatever. They were cool.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Yesterday, I killed some time doing some spot sketching in my new little pocket sketchbook. One thing that becomes really apparent when you sit and watch people is how ubiquitous phones are. The vast majority of people I saw were on their phones, either talking or texting. I can't say I'm any better. When I was in Canada last week, I wouldn't use my phone because of the high roaming charges, and was on a constant lookout for free wi-fi. It drove me crazy! Amazing how dependent we've become on the technology. What will we do if an asteroid strikes or there's a zombie apocalypse and the whole system goes down?

 

 

 

 

This guy was reading an actual newspaper! The type printed on paper!

 

 

 

Quick sketches from my Canada trip

Went on a trip to Toronto last week for a wedding. I'd gotten a 4X6 inch sketchbook to try something new. I usually lug around a larger sketchbook in my bag, but this one can slip in my pocket. Also, I just used a Uni-ball marker and just did very quick sketches. It worked out pretty well, I thought.

My Mother-In-Law, at the wedding

The bride's grandmother

Some lady at the wedding

The bride's mother

The Maid of Honor

little garden at the venue

sound technician at the wedding

CN Tower, seen from Centre Island

View from top of CN Tower

View from top of CN Tower

CN Tower from Centre Island

Telephone Pole, somewhere in PA

Some sort of tank at a rest stop in PA