The view from Vue

My nightly drawing routine is really working! All of a sudden I have all these drawings and I am way behind discussing them.

On Friday I did not get out on my bike -- but I did get out. And yes, in answer to the obvious question, I did remember it was Leonard Pennario's birthday, July 9. I have been working hard on that book, in between doing my drawings. After a number of years it is coming together.

Back to Friday. I toted a sketchbook because I thought, I have to get in a sketch somewhere. And I did! I sketched the view from Vue, the bar at the top of the Curtiss Hotel.

That is a snapshot at left of me working on my composition. This one tangle of buildings appealed to me because it included the Rand Building, with its mighty, magnificent antenna. I planned the picture a little more carefully than I usually do because I wanted to make sure I could fit that antenna on the page in all its glory.

As I drew I sipped a vodka and soda -- my go-to Keto drink -- and I thought back on the one time I was lucky enough to get a temp job in the Rand Building. And up at the top, too! It was for an engineering place called Hatch and Associates. Their secretary was on maternity leave and I took her place. I was typing engineers' papers.

I enjoyed that temp job. There were many I did not enjoy but I liked that one. There was one engineer from South Africa that I remember the other secretaries were afraid of because he was grumpy and fussy. I decided to make that engineer love me and sure enough, he did. While I was there I was the only one who typed his papers.

Everyone should temp at least once in his or her life. There is no experience like it, becoming part of an office for this limited little time. You get to be like Mary Poppins, gone when the wind changes. Poof. Goodbye, Mary! You must get someone else to type your papers now, fussy South African engineer! I think his name was Paul. Everything is stocked away in my head somewhere.

I do remember the view was beautiful from the top of the Rand Building. I wish I had been drawing back then, is all I can think.

Imagine the souvenirs I would have!

A farewell on Ellicott Street

As I wrote on Facebook today, I love sketching around Buffalo because I like to celebrate what we have. It makes me so sad when something I've drawn passes into history.

Today downtown I saw that this old building on Ellicott Street was destroyed. My friend Meghan and I were going from St. Michael's to Starbucks to sketch and we thought at first it was a fire. But we have since learned it was an emergency demolition because of neglect. The landlord had neglected this building and the roof began to cave in.

This is the sweet building with the peaked roof on the right in the sketch I did standing on the sidewalk last summer, of the block with Maureen's Flowers.

Darn it all! That is what I wrote on Facebook and one friend complimented me on my resistance to bad language.

Now I am officially like Charles Burchfield and his "Rainy Night" building. The buildings next to the main corner "Rainy Night" building are gone but they live on in his picture.

This building lives on in mine.

It is bittersweet because now, looking at the picture, it is like seeing a ghost. I remember that beautiful summer day I drew the sketch, from the sidewalk across the street. When you look at the sketch now I see that the building that came down today, the picture would not work without it. That roof added height and variety. And I admired the roof. I got in the little details that made it so cute.

We are all railing about this on Facebook and another point I made on a friend's page is that to make matters worse it is on a prominent downtown street. There is a gap now that cannot be filled.

Our friend the photographer Phil Pantano took that picture of the loss. Horrible. He ran it side by side with the sketch. I will not do that because No. 1 it is heartbreaking and No. 2 I do not have the technical know-how.

Buffalo! I love the place but sometimes....

Can you stand it?

Sketching a shoeshine

My friend Meghan and I were downtown yesterday sketching and I drew a picture of her getting a shoeshine in the downtown Buffalo Athletic Club building at 69 Delaware Avenue in downtown Buffalo.

That is it up above!

It is fun to draw whatever happens to be going on. I am starting to see that.

If you have a sketchbook you are never bored!

Drawing on the right side of the food court

I have been sketching a lot at the downtown library. And the other day I headed over there because I was downtown with Howard and I had a couple of hours to work while he went to the dentist. On my way to the library, though, I stopped and looked around.

I thought: I have drawn everything out the windows of the library that there is to draw!

That was when I saw Main Place Mall. Let me check out the food court, I thought. The food court is on the second floor and perhaps there are some views.

And sure enough!

I went in and I drew the Rand Building and the Brisbane Building. There was a table that afforded me a pretty good view. And it beat drawing the same old stuff I have drawn a million times from the library. I mean, I love some of the views from the library. But there are not as many as you think.

It is a strange situation you encounter in the Main Place Mall food court, I must point that out.

On the one hand is the sound system. They play classical music, I guess to try to make people finish up their lunch and go. Me, of course, I love it. On this occasion they were alternating between Mozart and Beethoven, mostly chamber music, but with some piano concertos tossed in. Even with the system being on shuffle, it was heaven.

On the other hand there is this garbage person who orbits the food court ceaselessly pushing this deafening garbage cart. Again, they do not want you to get too comfortable.

Also there were all these guys. There are no women in the food court! It was just me and these guys. And this one guy in particular kept yapping into his cell phone. Apparently people were wanting money from him and that was what he was talking about. He had a million calls going on and to each caller he kept saying, "I'm going to call you back."

True, you get in the drawing zone and you do not hear too much anyway. It fades out. But in the meantime I was getting a little stressed and I am afraid it would show in my work.

Well, all is well that ends well. I liked what I did and when Howard got out of the dentist I went home with him happy.

 And the next day I went back again, this time with my friend Meghan who is super-artistic and sketches with me. It was exactly the same as the first day -- Mozart and Beethoven quartets, schufts and oiks, the garbage guy, no other women in the food court, uneasy cell phone conversations, the whole bit. But we were there for, yikes, almost five hours! And we did good work.

Above is my second portrayal of the Rand Building and the Brisbane Building. The best part is the street lamp, to my way of thinking. I like to draw exactly what is in front of my eyes. It is a kind of souvenir.

The Main Place Mall food court .... I will remember it!

The uneasy Brisbane Building

I got to sketch outside today. That was exciting! It is not as if I never draw in the cold but when it is beastly cold you cannot.

Today it was -- I want to say it was almost in the 50s, because you did not need gloves. So I sat outside the, ahem, Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, and I drew the Brisbane Building. It felt like spring, even as it was getting dark. I always seem to be drawing when it is getting dark.

Howard looked at it later and he liked how I drew the flag at half staff. He said it showed I was drawing it for real, as opposed to from a photograph -- just the way it was.

He said, "The flag makes you feel a little uneasy."

And I was thinking, I wonder if my picture of the Brisbane Building does make people feel uneasy? If it does, though, I do not think it is because of the flag.

I think it was because I once worked there!

I worked there when I was with Citibank and that was one job that just ended up blowing up in my face. One of these days I will describe that but meanwhile, if the picture looks stressful that is why.

I am glad it is now and not then.

I am glad I am drawing the Brisbane Building, and not working there!

Sketching the smoky alley

You know how Monet went back again and again to his lily ponds? And Georgia O'Keeffe returned to her New Mexico landscapes?

I keep returning to this one Buffalo alley.

It is downtown and for some reason whenever I draw it, it is always getting dark. The other night there was smoke coming from a chimney and I sketched it and signed it with a flourish, as you can see up above. Your signature is the thing about art that is the most fun! See, this is something other artists will not tell you.

This was the sketch before I put in the shadows.

I kind of like it that way too! But I thought about what I loved about that alley and it was the smokiness of the scene.

Earlier when I sketched this alley it was from a different angle. What I loved about it that time, looking at it from that slightly different direction, was the building in the middle, on that garage building, and the snow on the roof.

That building is just so cool!! I want to go back and try it from that angle again. In the upper versions you can only see the edge of it.

When darkness descended I drew the alley again. From this angle I had a good glimpse of the gas station sign in the foreground. I loved drawing that sign. In the top picture you just see the edge of it.

And I did not even show you the mistakes! I love drawing that alley, is all I can say. By the way right to the left of the alley -- it would be off the paper -- is the famous "Rainy Night" corner building that Charles Burchfield painted so magnificently in 1930. Here is Burchfield's famous painting.

He returned to that building several times. I just read that and I loved it because it made me think of me and the alley. I started reading up on Burchfield recently because some people who saw my drawings said my style reminded them of his. Which, could you please tell me that again?

La la la la la la la.

Ahem.

Anyway. That is the greatest compliment ever, and I am not going to say I deserve it. But I am enjoying learning about Burchfield because I am seeing that many of the things that appealed to him are the same things that appeal to me. And I think we share some of the same ways of thinking and looking at things.

This is cool: If you look at Burchfield's corner house, the house that stars in his picture, and count over three houses to the right, according to my calculations that is the building that stars in my alley picture. The two buildings in the middle are gone now, replaced by a pawnshop and I forget what else, probably a parking lot. But that building on the right, the little one with the four rows of windows -- that has to be the building on the left in my sketch. And sure enough, in the Burchfield painting, to the right of that building, you can see my alley.

I wonder if Burchfield ever painted it? If he never got around to it, that's too bad. But he can rest easy.

I've got it covered!

Bombing around Buffalo

Today my friend Meghan and I went downtown to sketch and wound up bombing around. Which I loved. When was the last time I bombed around? I could not even remember.

We went to Fountain Plaza and sketched the skaters. That is my masterful rendition up above!  It was something different for me and I had a lot of fun with it.

Then we turned around and sketched the old Buffalo Savings Bank across the street.

And after that we went wandering down Main Street and there was a hot dog man and so we ate hot dogs.

Then we found ourselves in Roosevelt Plaza and we drew the Hiker. That is a statue put up to commemorate the veterans of the Spanish-American War. Here is what I loved. The whole time we were sketching, nobody stopped and wanted to see our work. However, everyone looked at us and then they looked up at the Hiker.

I loved that people were looking at the statue. I loved that they noticed it. Normally people walk by statues and never notice them.

After that Meghan was a little cold so we stopped in a hip coffee shop but it was small and crowded so we went to the Lafayette Hotel and got coffee at the Public. We got our coffee to go and, coffee in hand, aimlessly wandered the hotel, all three floors, admiring how beautiful it was.

Then at long last we emerged and meandered down to the Electric Tower. We wondered if we could go in and sure enough, we could. There is a pretty coffee shop in there so next time we get coffee that will be where we go.

To our delight the corridors of the Electric Tower were lined with historic photos of the place. We learned what it used to do, which was sell electric appliances, lamps and refrigerators and such. We must have pored over those pictures for an hour, discussing the eras they portrayed, and what our lives would have been like had we lived then, and whether or not we would have been able to do our hair like the women in the pictures, and how people used to dress, and which buildings were there then that are not there now, and why was it necessary to take them down.

La la la la la la la.

After the skaters and the Buffalo Savings Bank and the Hiker we never did end up doing another drawing. However I did feel we accomplished something. Later I realized I had not taken a single picture. I had snapped nothing with my camera! I had only what was in my sketchbook. And that preserved the day, you know? Looking at my sketch of the skaters I remember it all, how the flags were flying in the wind, how one skater fell on her bottom, what the day was like.

Leonard Pennario told me that he never took pictures, that what he had in his head was better.

With me it is what is in the sketchbook.

It is better!