New York City Skyline

Today I got out of work early due to a barely functioning AC, which in turn made the office too hot to work in comfortably or sanely.  So instead of heading home to a cool place, I went to the Jersey City waterfront at Exchange Place and sketched downtown Manhattan.  I was aiming to have the drawing fit on one 11x14 sheet of bristol, but ended up using three.  Pictured above are the buildings south of the Goldman Sachs building.  The Freedom Tower is in there; a bit too short and incomplete.  I made a separate drawing of the Freedom Tower on the left which I'll finish and add into the final drawing.   I will probably redraw all this on one large sheet at some point in the near future.  It was a super relaxing, albeit HOT, drawing session.  There was a breeze that made the heat more bearable, but an annoying fly that has made multiple red, itchy marks on my legs.  

A Drawing A Day 14-16

NYC

Yesterday I spent the entire day in NYC doing various fun things, one of which was drawing at Starbucks while I waited for Stacey Clarkson, art director of Harper's Magazine, to review my portfolio that I had dropped off for Harper's monthly portfolio day.

Duke of York Square

Duke of York Square, London UK

I finally finished coloring the Duke of York Square drawing I made while sitting in front of the Saatchi Gallery in London back in August. 

Zanaki Street

My family and I went to the sokoni (Kiswahili for "market") on Zanaki street today.  While Baba was out buying enough fruits to feed a platoon, I sat in the car and drew what I saw from the window.  These were the two vendors right across the street from where we were parked.

Drawn: Dar es Salaam, Ahmedabad, Udaipur, Mumbai, Dubai

Last week I returned to the US after being away for 5 weeks.  I visited Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar in Tanzania, Ahmedabad, Udaipur and Mumbair in India, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (during my 20 hour lay-over).  I left the US with a half used sketchbook, a brand new watercolor sketchbook (60 pages?), and two watercolor paper blocks.

The last time I went to Tanzania I had packed too many art supplies and hardly used them, so this time I packed fewer after careful calculation..."careful."  I didn't take into consideration that I enjoy drawing on location so much more than I did in early 2009 and therefore draw a lot more than I did in early 2009.  Barely the end of week 2 of the trip, I had breezed through the second half of the sketchbook and already filled in the first quarter of the new one.  By week 3 I had to really stop my self before drawing and ask whether or not the subject was worth using up the precious 8-10 pages left of the book.  Generally I don't really sketch on paper blocks because then I'd have a pile of loose sheets to keep in order, but at the rate I was churning out drawings, I had no choice.

Drawings from Zanzibar can be viewed here.   The following drawings I created using a Rotring pen and watercolors in my sketchbook or on watercolor paper blocks. 

Old man next to a road-side fruit stand.  I'm 99% sure that the stand did not belong to him for he left after a little while and there was also a younger man tending it the whole time we were there.  My dad stopped to buy mangoes for us to take to the beach.  We were parked next to the stand for maybe 10 minutes or so and I thought it was a enough time to make a quick drawing.

Every time I go home to Tanzania, I HAVE to go to Bongoyo Island at least twice.  Bongoyo is a marine reserve island right out side Msasani Bay in Dar es Salaam (north of city center "town").  To get to the island you have to buy a ticket for a charter boat at The Slipway, which is a shopping center type place, but much nicer than any shopping center in the US since it's located right on the water.  The boat ride to and from the island is about 45 minutes.  On the way back, I drew the folks who were sitting across from me.

This is a long shelf in my aunt's pantry.

India:
My dad and I went on a 24-hour trip to Udaipur, Rajasthan. We hired a taxi in Ahmedabad and started the 4-hour drive at 6:30am.  When we got there, the drive dropped us off in the old city area and we walked the narrow streets, shopped, window shopped, took some pictures and drew some scooters and a vegetable cart.

On the second day, my dad and I did a tour of the Palace Museum.  This drawing is of the palace post office.  The case at the bottom is the original, antique pigeon roost, and the hanging cages are the more recent cages.  The palace became a museum in the 70s, so I'm pretty sure this postal room is no longer in use.

The following weekend my whole family and I took a sleeper train from Ahmedabad to Mumbai.  We stayed at my great aunt's flat.  This is the view from her dining room window.

The day after we got back from Mumbai, my mom, sister, nephew and I were invited to accompany a very close family friend to her organic farm, a 45-minute drive outside Ahmedabad.  I drew the buffalo from the farm  next door.

I left India to return to the US on December 29th.  I had a 20 hour lay-over in Dubai so the airline booked me a hotel.  After resting up, I ventured into Dubai to Meena Bazaar, the textile market.  Dubai is split over Dubai Creek.  Meena Bazaar is on one side, and the Gold Souk is across from it.  This illustration shows the creek, the ferries, and the Gold Souk.

 This drawing is of Meena Bazaar itself.

I visited the Dubai Museum and drew the taxidermied birds that hung in the entrance to the galleries.

Drawings from Zanzibar

The first weekend of December my parents, my sister, my nephew, and I flew over to Zanzibar for a weekend of hanging out at the newly opened hotel that my parents designed - Sea Cliff Resort and Spa Zanzibar.  It was a ton of fun and even more fun because I started a new sketchbook!  The sketching began at Dar es Salaam Airport Terminal 1 (domestic flights), continued through the weekend and ended on the plane ride back to Dar.

 Since the flight to Zanzibar is 25 minutes (I think it's about 50 miles north) the planes used are the tiny 12 passenger planes - Cessna Caravan planes.  The above drawing I did while standing outside the departure lounge.

The second pilot seat is almost never used by a second pilot, usually a passenger can sit there if you ask.  So I ended up sitting there and drew the dashboard.  It was hard to resist pushing the buttons.

Sunday morning my dad and I took a cab into Stone Town (built by Omani merchants in the early/mid 1800s) so that I could draw the old buildings, narrow streets, muhogo (cassava) roaster, sugar cane juice maker, people sitting on stoops and scooters, and all the jumble of wires and cables that connect one building to the next.

These two buildings are on Kenyatta Street.  The one on the left belongs to Eric and Saada (folks we know) and the one on the right has a carpenter's workshop on the ground floor and a Goan family living on the first floor.  The balconies of both houses are have great detail in them.

 This is the front of Beit el Ajaib (Arabic for House of Wonders).  It was built in 1883 for the second sultan of Zanzibar, then was rebuilt after it was damaged during the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 (the world's shortest war; it lasted 45 minutes).  I believe it was called the House of Wonders because it had electricity and an elevator, probably other fancy things too.  It's now a museum.  Look it up in Wikipedia for more info :D

Flying back I sat up front again, this time I drew the whole dashboard and the pilot's hand.  The pilot was quite mesmerized by the fact that I draw and paint an entire image in the 20-25 minute plane ride.  My sister said that she was worried we'd end up in Tanga with the amount of glancing he did while flying us back!

This last one was drawn on location but painted at home.  We'd gone to Addis In Dar, an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner (the best restaurant in Dar and one of my all time favourites).  It's located in an old house's terrace.  Mood lighting is provided by fabric umbrellas lamps every few feet along the railing and the tall, free standing candle holders.  The tee-pee like objects are the table covers.  Eating Ethiopian food is a communal activity.  Food is brought out on a large plate lined with ingera (looks a bit like a crepe but made from fermented teff batter) and everyone eats from the same large platter.  The food is delicious.

Professor Powers

I decided to draw my professor, Daniel Powers, during a book binding demo in class a month or so ago.  This is that drawing.  He looks like he's wearing a camo print shirt but it's actually leaves in various shades of green.

Savannah Illustrated

One of the projects I'm currently working on is an artists book.  The title will be something along the lines of "Savannah Illustrated" and will be a compilation of drawings I've done around Savannah in the past few weeks.

Here's are a few of the drawings.

Broughton St, view from Leopold's Ice Cream Parlor,  the beige building on the far left is the front corner of the SCAD library.

The visitor center at Forsyth Park.

The Daughters of the American Republic Cemetery (D.A.R.)

Inside D.A.R. - apparently if you were buried there, you were a big deal.

"Century Plant" in D.A.R.. It's actually not a century plant at all, its a 30 year plant.

On Location - Keller's Flea Market

On Location #5 - Keller's Flea Market - final location drawing field trip.

They had this garden area with old rusty garden things and chairs.  Was a great place to sit and draw and observe the interesting people visiting the market.

watercolor and pen in Moleskine watercolor folio
8.5 x 12 inches

On Location - Tybee Lighthouse

Location #4 Tybee Lighthouse and other buildings
The sailor is a mannequin they had in a display case.  

After the class/field trip was over, my friends (Jeff, Bri, Erin and Yi) and I went to the beach for a couple hours.  Yi and I didn't have swimsuits with us so we sat and drew on the beach.

watercolor and pen in Moleskine watercolor folio
8.5 x 12 inches

On Location - SCAD Equestrian Center

Location #3 - SCAD Equestrian Center.  Drew some horses and come classmates.

watercolor and pen in Moleskine watercolor folio
8.5 x 12 inches

On location - Oatland Island Wildlife Center

Location #2: Oatland Island Wildlife Center
Water color and pen in a Moleskin watercolor folio
8.5 x 12 inches

On Location - Roundhouse Railroad Museum - May 11-12

The ticket for the RR Museum is valid for 3 days.  My friend, bri, who is also in the class, and I went back to ride the train since we missed the times the original day of visit.  The train ride was really not worth it.  We were told it goes beyond the museum to places inaccessible by foot, we literally rode 100 feet in one direction, came back to the roundabout and went 100 feet in another direction to the warehouse they're converting into Savannah's first children's museum.  After the "ride" we walked around and hung out in the workshop/blacksmith area to draw all the equipment.

Pen, ink and watercolor in Moleskine Watercolor folio book
12 x 8.5 inches