Mining My Sketchbooks

As part of my spring cleaning and general tidying up I've been reviewing old sketchbooks from two or three years back. These drawings were either exercises done to study an idea or a method or sometimes they were studies for larger works. In many cases studies don't lead anywhere beyond the pages of my sketchbook, and sometimes I even forget having done them. But once in a while when leafing through old drawings one or another catches my eye. You never know if that second look might lead to a painting.

These are drawings from 2015 that I did using reference photos from various online sources. The disc-like structure is one of the subway station entrances in Union Square (New York). It looks vaguely like a flying saucer with its round dome and covers the entrance to the vast 14th Street station in that underlies the square. The structure has fascinated me for years ever since I first saw it. These sketches and a number of others led directly to several paintings, including the one posted below.

Now that I've seen these graphite sketches again, the idea of a new painting or two of Union Square, maybe even featuring the two subway entrances, might be in the offing. In the painting below, done roughly this time of year in 2015 but from a slightly different viewpoint shows the subway kiosk during those bright minutes just before the sun peeps out. "False Dawn, Union Square is a 20x16 oil on panel that grew out of several visits to the Big Apple, plus the sketches above. There is always something more to ponder, and revisiting old sketches allows that sort of simmering to continue.

"False Dawn, Union Square," oil on panel, 2015

Here's another sketch from 2015 that led to a painting. This is an ink drawing of the old Pearl Paint shop that closed a few years ago when real estate speculation began. The facade is probably recognizable to many with it's bright red trim. The drawing was simply an idle work to try out some new pens and markers but the view kept coming back. Eventually the result was the oil painting "Paint Palace," 11x14 on panel, which sold a few years ago. As often happens, I had forgotten the drawing once the sketchbook was full, although it did lead to a painting I mused about at the bottom of the drawing.

"Paint Palace," oil on panel, 2015

 

Besides the two sketches above I also found a few more that didn't  make the cut to become paintings but still contain intriguing ideas. The first is a young couple who seem to have undergone an unhappy or tragic experience. The man is comforting his female companion, who hides her face in his shoulder. The man has that distant look of someone shocked by circumstances, sometimes called the "thousand yard stare." In the context of the current news of mass tragedies this could become a potent image in paint. 

This sketchbook page is from 2015, two studies of a diner sign and exterior. In previous oil paintings one of my interests has been disappearing architecture, especially quirky buildings and signs. In years past I've painted Gordon's Novelties, a defunct and idiosyncratically blue storefront in New York (now gone) and Pearl Paint, the former titan of New York art supply stores with it's red and white gingerbready facade. So the idea of a diner, especially one that's no longer in business, is an attractive one too. These sketches were studies for a full-scale oil that somehow never made it onto canvas. Perhaps this dive into old sketches will make it happen, particularly the diner.