The first edge of this adventure was the ragged tree line at the edge of the runway at the Asheville airport. I almost always draw it as soon as I arrive at the gate, sort of a calming-of-airport-jitters thing. And then, as we were leveling off after takeoff, I was showing Maya how to draw the slowly-moving landscape beneath us, an edge we rarely get to see as it grows smaller and less distinct and finally dissolves into patterns and foggy colors.
My seat mate was engrossed in doing something on her phone, and I got to draw her while she was preoccupied. She crunched on chips while she flipped thru an impressive number of emails. The first morning of our visit we went into Manhattan to meet with some friends. At the Maplewood station waiting for New Jersey Transit I noticed that every single person was plugged into a digital thing. I rarely take a commuter train, and riding with M made it into an adventure since it was a rare occasion for her too.
More commuters, and then some guards at Grand Central, where we went to meet up with the rest of our friends who were coming in from different directions. When we saw similar guards a few days later in Penn Station with 5 year old Nate, he was very interested in their outfits. He has lego guys that wear outfits and carry cases something like this, and his enthusiasm made me interested in really seeing what a guard carries.
It's hard to explain why we draw what we draw. I've been reading John Berger's book about sketching and Bento Spinoza. Berger talks about drawing what wants to be seen, or what our eyes want to notice. I would agree, but I still can't explain why of all the people I saw on the streets of Manhattan that day the most interesting to me was a woman with a cross around her neck and a kind of priest's robe walking briskly out of that little church down near Wall Street. I actually saw her twice, once coming out of Trinity Church and once out of St. John's. I was only able to grab a sketch of the back of her as she flew by. To her left and NOT a part of the same drawing was this exploration of the Dubuffet sculpture in Rockefeller Plaza. On the right, Maya in her new teal blue Keds that she had just bought from TJ Max next door to the stock exchange.
M on NJT heading home after a long day.
Above are some planning sketches for a garden arch that M and I are planning to decorate for a wedding next week. We made a little model of it while in NJ, and then I made a drawing of our ideas.
E's square foot garden has beautiful broccoli just beginning to flower. And on the right are some plan drawings of details of his garden.
On the left sugar snap peas also from one of the square foot gardens; and on the right is two year old Abby who wanted me to draw her--
and draw her and draw her and draw Rosie, her cat. I like 5167 best for looking most like her but 5168 shows her fierce determination.
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