newyorkette

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More sketches in my Muji book with permanent marker. This time I took the subway to Penn Station, then the train to Rhinebeck, where I drew these before having enough coffee to perhaps do better! The idea was to do a study of the trees, which have always been a pain in the neck for me to draw (so many leaves, so distracting!).

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Above, on the left, a chipmunk made an appearance on the bannister mid-drawing.
Below, a pond jumping with fish except when I fished in it.

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I got a blank “magazine” with newsprint pages from the Muji store on 39th and 8th avenue (I am trying to stay away from that place!), and decided to use it with the permanent marker I bought there also to draw people while out and about.

So here are my first two subjects. First, a lady on the subway (shakey subway ride, so sorry about the jittery line), above. Then, below, a big guy in Bryant Park.

Both had the simple luck (or misfortune) to be sitting directly in front of me, oblivious to my presence. Not meant to be masterpieces, just very quick, surreptitious sketches meant to keep me drawing now that my day job has become rather overwhelming lately!

(Oh, and the dates are wrong, should be June 20th, not June 19th. I just hardly ever know what day it is.)

And I let him know it! I put this sign on the front door for him this weekend. After all, it’s been months! He told me I was the only one in the building who wanted him, which explains the…. er, BUGS!!!!!

As for the mousie that’s been in my housie of late, I spent all weekend discovering and patching holes I never dreamed existed, infusing steel wool with expanding polyurethane foam (when I told the exterminator about this tactic, he smirked, looked at me with the now-familiar look I get from everyone that says: “only an insanely determined nut like you would think of that” and declared: “yep, that should work!”).

Then, probably feeling like I’d never judge him for having a crazy idea, he said I wouldn’t believe it but mice like to eat cement powder mixed with rat poison and rice, in case I locked the mouse in, instead of out after all my work.

Cement powder? What is he, crazy?
But that would explain why the mouse hasn’t been into my fresh fruit on the windowsill. He obviously only likes junk food and comes here on the off chance I’ve brought home some McDonald’s, or cement powder laced with DeCon.

This is the cartoon I gave to the exterminator for Christmas last year.

The literal one, I mean.
I’ve decided that I will only draw the page turners at concerts (when there is one). Here is the page turner from Friday’s Movado Hour at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, drawn on the program on site. She had a couple of embarrassing moments during which Fred Sherry, the pianist, revealed himself to be perfectly capable of turning his own pages.

For more on the free recitals at the BAC, click here.