Sketchbooks

This is a pile of sketchbooks. I filled these in the past year with about 900 drawings, more or less. The vast majority were made on or around the NYC subway, quickly, sometimes furtively with a soft pencil or litho crayon (Stones) or gel pen (pilot G2 07). Often I worked back into them at home, using memory and improvisation, and often adding color with caran d'ache neocolor crayons or schminke pan watercolors. Other subjects in the books -- baseball, NYC parks, cityscapes, landscapes (several from Ohio), a few movie pieces, and the political stuff. What began as a way to reconnect casually with observational drawing became a vein of satisfying work unto itself, and the subway rider drawings in particular took on added resonance of diversity and inclusiveness for me in the heated campaign year. Working this way was a necessity, as certain circumstances (good, personal ones) kept me away from the studio more than I'd like this year. I'm not sure I'll be able to sustain this pace, but I'll see what happens.