Inktober 2022 Finale

 Last three days of Inktober 2022, Cat Edition.

Inktober 2022 - Week Four

 Cats Cats Cats

Inktober 2022 - Week Three

 Week three of Inktober Cats.

Inktober 2022 - Week Two

 More Cats

Inktober 2022 - Week One

I'm doing the Inktober Challenge again, where you're challenged to produce an ink drawing every day for the month. I did this challenge last year, but just realized I never posted them on this platform. Oh well . . . This year, for no particular reason, my theme is Cats. The animals, not the musical. I'm doing them all in brush in an attempt to finally level-up my brush skills. And since the untimely death of Kim Jung Gi a few days ago, I've decided to further challenge myself by not doing any preliminary pencil sketches. I was always amazed watching that man produce these complex compositions straight out of his head, straight with ink, without any preparatory work. I have a long way to go before I get to that level!

Before It's Gone: Papaya King

 

Another day, another vanishing NYC icon. Papaya King has sold hot dogs and tropical juices on the corner of 86th Street and 3rd Avenue since the 1940s. But last year, the lot where the restaurant sits was purchased by Extell Development for $21 million. While the eatery has not yet been evicted, demolition plans for the building have been filed. Extell is known for building high-rise luxury towers, such as the Central Park Tower, the tallest residential building in the world.

The business was founded in 1932 by Gus Poulos, a Greek immigrant (hmm, funny how many of these histories feature immigrants). Originally, Gus just sold tropical fruit drinks, which he'd developed a passion for while on vacation in Florida. However, the largely German population of the neighborhood didn't know what papayas or guava even were. As his son, Peter, explained in this interview, "People did not know what these juices were. So he had to spend a lot of time and money giving away these juices every day to the public - and literature, trying to educate them what papaya is, what this fruit was, that fruit was." Eventually, Poulos added something to the menu that Germans did know - frankfurters - and thus Papaya Dog was born. Its success spawned a number of similarly-named restaurants, such as Gray's Papaya and Papaya Dog.

The business was passed on to Peter Poulos, Gus' son, who sold it to another owner in the early 2000s. Now that the end of Papaya Dog is near, Poulos sounds sanguine about it. "It's too valuable of a corner to make it a one-story building. It's like everything else. Everything has to come to an end eventually."

Process Pix:

Virgin Islands Sketchbook

A couple of weeks ago, me and the family went on vacation to the St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. I figured I wouldn't have much if any solo time for the long-term, labor intensive sketches I usually do, and I've been wanting to try something new anyway. So I bought a small, inexpensive sketchbook and a small watercolor kit. The book was 3.5x5.5 inches (8.9x14 cm), much smaller than my usual 9x12 sketchbook, and the color was all watercolor. All drawn so much faster and looser than I ever do. It's how most urban sketchers work, but it's pretty alien to me. I need a lot more practice and technique, but I liked how some of them came out.

Creque Alley is one of a series of narrow passageways near the shoreline in Charlotte Amalie, the main town of St Thomas. These warehouses once were notorious for housing pirates' loot; now they house restaurants and lots and lots of jewelry stores. It was also the namesake of a song by the Mamas and the Papas, (they added an 'e' in the title of  'Creeque Alley'). Supposedly they wrote the song while crashing with hippies in this alley, though the song doesn't mention the Virgin Islands at all.

The view from our hotel overlooked the bay where the cruise ships docked.

Magen's Beach is probably the most famous of the St. Thomas beaches, so it was the first one we hit. It was great, but actually not our favorite of the trip.

The observatory at Coral World Ocean Park. When you go downstairs, you're under the water and can view all the sealife swimming around.

It immediately reminded me of the Hall of Doom from the old Super-Friends cartoon.

We spent one day on neighboring St. John's Island and made a stop at the Annaberg Plantation, The remnants of this slave plantation are now part of the Virgin Islands National Park. This structure is the ruins of the windmill, standing 38 feet (11.5 m) high.

There is another, similar plantation windmill ruin that stands at the top of the Peace Hill trail.

This is not my favorite painting of the week, but it was my favorite beach, Secret Harbor.