Houses on stilts

In January 2017, I took my daughter for her first visit to the Philippines.  We traveled to Palawan and spent several days there.  In Coron, we stayed at Sunrise Pension House near the pier.  Next to this place is a series of houses built on wooden stilts that I tried to capture on this sketch.  I remember the colorful clothes hanging to dry, the small boat with outrigger, the mesmerizing shadows and reflections on the water, the peaceful atmosphere, the predominant use of bamboo materials.  That was a good vacation.

The High Line

It was a very windy cold day last Saturday at The High Line, a very popular tourist destination, where the NYC Urban Sketchers gathered for the weekend outing.  Too bad, I couldn't stay for longer.  However, it was great to see urban sketcher friends from near and afar even for the short two hours I was with them.    
   
I started a rough sketch of something a few days ago that did not materialize so I repurposed that page for this High Line sketch.  

One Year Anniversary

Guess what?  I made my first blog entry on Oct. 17, 2017 so technically, the "Sketches and Some" blog is a year and several days old.  It's amazing how time flies!

When I started this blog,  I wasn't sure what to write about or how it would turn out.  It was hard and it took agonizing days to create the second entry.  In hindsight, I guess you just need to keep at it no matter what.  Good or bad.  Now, I try to post daily of more recent work, not a repeat, if I can help it.  It is a great pleasure to share my work with you.

Before heading home from the city yesterday, I sketched the sculpture of Jules-Félix Coutan "Glory of Commerce" that sits atop the Grand Central Terminal.  The view was from the corner of East 40th St. & Park Ave.   Bic 4 color ballpoint pen and Fabriano FlexBook Ivory 85 gms.

Street Scene

Almost two years ago, I took my daughter for her first visit to the Philippines.  We stayed for a few days in El Nido, Palawan.  This was the street scene outside of the hotel we stayed at.

Sketching the sketchers

A Drink & Draw event every third Thursday of the month was held at the Jazz Forum Arts in Tarrytown, NY last October 18.  Model Cristina was there but for the second 10 minute pose, I decided to sketch the sketchers instead.

Inktober 31: Last day and Halloween

Last one for the Inktober challenge!  It was Halloween yesterday so I stopped by at a cemetery and randomly selected a sculpture to sketch.  Found this small angel nearby.

Glad I stayed on prompt and kept using the ballpoint pen for most of my entries.  Last year, I mainly used the fountain pen and ink, didn't follow the prompts, and I skipped several entries.  It was exhausting but in the end, I noticed significantly improved confidence drawing directly in ink.  Maybe that will also be true for the ballpoint pen since it can be just as good as ink for general sketching.   We'll see how long it takes before the novelty wears off.  My next goal is to keep this pocket sized sketchbook exclusive to ballpoint pen sketches only.  I'm ready to use watercolor again.

Inktober 30: Jolt

I was looking for something to sketch inside the Bruce Museum but couldn't find the right one to start with.  This after Arthur, a docent, gave me a quick tour of the current exhibit - ReTooled Highlights from the Hechinger Collection.

On the way home, I passed by this vintage 1930's Ford V8 red pickup truck loaded with festive Thanksgiving holiday decorations of pumpkins and bunches of dried corn stalks.  It was parked by the entrance to the Hotel Delamar.  This was good enough to keep me going for a quick sketch.  One more Inktober day...