The Charcoal Grain Elevator

 

When I was a teenager I liked drawing in charcoal. Yesterday I picked up a charcoal pencil for the first time since then, and I drew the great grain elevator at Gallagher Pier.

I was at the outer harbor with my brother Tony and as we were talking, sitting at a picnic table, that is when I drew the grain elevator.

It felt really good to draw with charcoal again!

Like ink, there is no erasing. Different from ink, however, you do not sweat it. When I am drawing in ink I really do take time, at least at first, to plan every line. With the charcoal, I think it was because I had a small piece of paper -- I was using my Long and Narrow sketchbook -- there was not a lot of room for detail. So I just went with it. I absolutely did not sweat it. I was surprised I ended up liking my drawing. I thought I was just horsing around.

Something is fitting about drawing an industrial building with charcoal. It just calls out for it, you know?

Now I have to get a charcoal pad. 

Haha ... I never can remember the name of this particular grain elevator, as many millions of times as I have sketched it. I just Googled it, and what came up? My own ink drawing of it. One of them, anyway.

It is the Cargill Pool Grain Elevator, at least that is the name I went with.

The ink sketch is very different from the charcoal sketch. That particular ink drawing is the most delicate drawing I have ever done. It is a line drawing. I left it that way because I liked it.

I also like it in charcoal.

Rough and ready!

The first ink sketch of the new year

 

It's not done yet, but this is my first ink sketch of 2022. I did it after mass this morning! This is the Great Northern Elevator, Buffalo's oldest grain elevator. When it was built in 1897, it was the biggest grain elevator in the world. Yay, Buffalo!

This cool old elevator is on the ropes because it was neglected and then damaged in a windstorm a couple of weeks ago. That is a Buffalo story that is always repeating, usually involving our most significant buildings. You can see the damage in the front there in the picture.

It is kind of interesting to tell you the truth to see the inside of the building. I did not know those silos were under there! I should have figured but I did not.

I hope this elevator pulls through because on top of the obvious reasons, I do love drawing it! This is maybe the 10th time I have tackled it. I have drawn it from all angles and studied it over the course of long hot summer afternoons, sitting on some curb with my bike and my backpack. I love all its layers and that water tower up on top, like the cherry on top of the sundae. 

Today I knocked off the drawing a little earlier than I would have had it not been so wet. I was out on the docks and leaning on this box that was full of puddles. Not smart! All of a sudden I was soaked! But I get this sense of triumph whenever I get to draw outside on an inclement day.

Will I sketch every day in 2022?

It is one of my plans!

Delaware Park in the Dark

Today I went out for my bike ride as usual -- but, NOT as usual, I had trouble finding something to draw.

Perhaps it was that I was having too much fun bike riding. It is a warm night and it felt good to ride and feel the breeze. I also went in a different direction from my usual ride toward Canisius College and Medaille. I drifted toward the old Pierce Arrow plant on Elmwood.

There is an awe-inspiring view of the Pierce-Arrow plant that can be had from the Tapestry School parking lot. The Tapestry School itself is nothing to speak of because it has this terrible new facade, although never say never. Anyway, I loved this view from the back parking lot, and I have drawn it before. However that lot was too deserted. 

There is a balance that must be struck when you draw, particularly if you are a woman. You do not want it to be too deserted. However you do not necessarily want it crowded either! These are things I must weigh as I ride around.

I had in mind drawing the History Museum, perhaps the back side of it. However all these fire engines went roaring past me and it turned out that was where they were heading. My luck, you know? All these neighbors standing around and firemen walking around talking to people. No worries because nothing looked as if it was burning, but there goes that idea.

The clock struck 8:45. I had forgotten my phone so I was telling time the medieval way, from chimes. I decided to head in the direction of home. While I was on my way there I found, finally, a view I liked. It was of the Marcy Casino.

I have drawn the Marcy Casino in Delaware Park on a number of occasions. I put one of those sketches at the top of this post. That was drawn in the daytime. There are these benches you can sit on that give you a nice view.

Tonight I was across the lake. It was as different as, well, as night and day!

The place was strung with white lights and everything was reflected in the lake. If you saw this on vacation you would take pictures and never stop telling your friends about it. It was that beautiful.

Not only that but in front of it and around it, people were creating their own entertainment. A crowd had assembled and Latin music was blaring. Jugglers were juggling torches. Folks were hula hooping with lighted hula hoops. Everyone was just milling around and I am imagining some people were dancing, although from across the lake I could not see that for certain.

There is no Shakespeare in the Park this year and so we must create our own entertainment. The fire jugglers, that was something you would see in the Renaissance. Fire jugglers are not uncommon at the Marcy Casino but tonight they were especially welcome.

Anyway -- I drew a picture but I must work it over to get that night feel and try to get in more of what I remember.

I will work on it and post it!

The secret neighborhood

I have a new tradition going with myself. Every evening I go for a bike ride and I sketch.

Those are the only two rules! The bike ride may be long or short. It can be a workout, or not. It can be my own bike, the beautiful Huffy Harvard Limited, or it can be one of those red rent-a-bikes.

About the sketch: I can do one the way I did last night, or I can do three as I did two nights before that. Or more. The important thing is just to do one and -- this is important -- not to sweat it. I want to relax and have fun.

One night I ended up riding 15 miles. Another night it was just a mile or two. That was the night I drew the building up above. The wonders that are in your back yard! That is Medaille College, just around the park.

Medaille College's cornerstone reads 1922. I seem to remember reading that it was originally a convent. Those nuns must have had some money. It is a beautiful place. And I had fun drawing it as darkness was falling.

That night I did a lot of exploring that area on my bike. I noticed that on Agassiz Circle, right there by Medaille College, there is a fascinating little neighborhood. It is hidden. There is a small network of cul de sacs and it is the most enchanting thing. 

It looked so private that I was not sure I could bike into it. Then I thought: I do not see any sign that says I cannot. So I biked on in, on my Huffy.

It was hushed in there with magical houses right on the sidewalk, with shaded front porches. Lights were twinkling on in the yards. Was this really only two minutes from my house?

I cannot believe the secret things I find.

You discover so much when you go out drawing on a bike!

Back to the Cheerios plant

 

Today I went back and again sketched the Maumee, which is fast becoming an old friend. I sit with the Maumee in the evening until the ship's lights begin to blink on.

The people around the docks are getting to know me too. One gentleman yesterday told me that the Maumee's presence is a kind of first to him. He said that he could never remember a ship wintering here as the Maumee is doing.

I confessed that I had a thing for these freighters. He asked me about it. He said he was a sailor. Look at me, down on the docks, talking with sailors.

It is the best I can do to draw the back end of the ship, pictured above.

I do like that picture, I have to tell you. I had a nice smooth pen to draw it with. These Microns, they kick around my purse and my car and they do not stay nice for very long. Part of the problem is the caps. The Micron makers blew it with the caps. The caps come off too easily and are lost too easily. 

I lucked out today and had a wonderful time drawing the smooth outlines of the ship, inking in the windows of the Cheerios plant. I was sitting right down by the water, on the steps of the dock.

The beaver, or whatever creature that was, was not in evidence today. I was disappointed.

But I did entertain myself with the drawing. The evening was lovely and as if to welcome me, the Cheerios plant began piping out that sugary Cheerios aroma.

After the drawing above I turned the page and tried drawing the whole ship. It can be done, I can see that. You have to start with a long swipe up, as if you are drawing with a calligraphy pen, and then you just have to take things from there. I have a good start. Tomorrow mayhap I will post what I did.

Mayhap, listen to me!

I am becoming a salt.

Arr, arr, mate!

When I was done I walked back to Wilkeson Pointe and sat down on the beach with my friend Ryan who was already there. Ryan was relieved that the beaver was not there by the river and so he had not missed anything.

The grain elevator lighted up as the daylight disappeared. Again I had the feeling that I hated to see the day end. The ice is melting. One of these days the Maumee will be gone and this episode of my life will be over.

But not yet.

I think I still have a few days!

Sketching in the snow

Today on my way to Candlemas Mass I stopped and sketched Tempo. That is a restaurant occupying a beautiful old mansion on Delaware Avenue.

Is that correct, to say Candlemas Mass? Is it not just Candle Mass? Well, we say Christmas Mass.

Anyway.

It was fun, drawing Tempo. It took me out of my day. This is funny but I think the right way to draw a building is, you sketch in the shape, then you fill it out. I do not normally operate that way. I started in this case at the upper left hand corner of the drawing, and then I worked my way down. Always in ink, too, so you do not erase. If I worked in pencil I would always be erasing.

I was thinking, that all through my life, when I have done crossword puzzles -- any puzzles -- I have always worked in ink as well. My mother always used pencil. She used to try to reason with me because sometimes I would end up having to cross things out, and it would turn into a mess. But doing a crossword in pencil is no fun! The fun is writing in ink.

I am an ink-stained wretch!

I will have to finish the Tempo sketch and post it. I could take it only so far. No. 1 I had to go to Mass. Secondly, it was snowing and the window I was looking through, the side window, was getting snowy to the point that I could not see. I rolled it down to take the picture.

After Mass my car was covered in snow and I had to brush it off.

An observation on this year's Christmastide: It began and ended with snow!

On Christmas Eve we got our usual Christmas Eve snowstorm. I came out of Midnight Mass at, yikes, about 2:30 a.m. And my car was buried as was everyone else's. Heavy, wet snow. Buffalo. Got to love it!

Now on Candlemas evening I came out of the candlelit Mass and my car was again covered in snow. Not as bad as after Midnight Mass on Christmas, but still.

We have not gotten much snow in the interim!

Well, it is all worth it. Mass tonight, it was about two hours long, but when I came down from the choir loft for Communion, I was just overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. The church was dark and lighted only by candles. There were candles arrayed all over the high altar and the people in the pews were holding candles. It had looked beautiful from above but it was even more beautiful below.

Mozart and Beethoven and Palestrina must have gone to Mass in such an atmosphere!

I took this pic shortly before Mass but it does not begin to describe it.

Most people go through their whole lives and never experience anything like this!

And on top of that we had a white Christmas.

The start, and the finish!

When Life Gives You Street Lights..

 .. Draw them!

That is what I believe, and I followed my own directive when I sketched Buffalo's Blessed Trinity Church one winter afternoon.

I do not know what it is, I just love drawing the flotsam and jetsam of city life. That includes traffic signals, No Standing signs, parking meters, bicycle locking thingies, and most definitely light posts.

When I did this sketch of Blessed Trinity I even began with the street light. It was important to me!

The funny thing about all this was, shortly after I did that drawing, I mentioned it to a photographer friend of mine. He told me that Blessed Trinity, given its inner city location, is notorious among photographers -- dreaded, even -- because you cannot get a straight shot at it without a light post being in the way.

Hahahahha!

Here I am, working in old-fashioned pen and ink, and I could have left the light post out, but instead I drew it and it became central to my picture.

I even made it into a Christmas card.

If it is there, I draw it! That should be my slogan.

My friend Lizzie, when she saw my picture, she said, "It's great, just get rid of the street light."

Um, my drawing is not a computer screen?

It is not that simple?

And furthermore, I like it the way it is!

Plus, later when I looked at it I saw it added another cross to the scene.

It was meant to be!

I keep thinking, maybe it is because I was a reporter for so long, I enjoy just putting down the truth. If the street light is there, I want to include it. Sometimes it is awkward, a No Parking sign impeding your vision of something, but it is interesting too. 

I like to draw what is before my eyes.

No judgment!

 

My friendly neighborhood bison

 

This morning while I was walking I stopped and took a picture of this bison.

I feel so blessed that I can see bison within walking distance of my house!

Bison do not care that you are there and they do not care what kind of day it is.

It can be raining and they are sitting there same as if it were sunny. They have a shelter but they do not go into it.

They are irresistible to photograph. When I was looking in the computer for the picture I took today I came up with this one too. I think Howard took it.

It is a privilege to be able to sketch a bison from life. It was one of the first things I drew in my, ahem, early days of drawing, in my pocket sketchbook. This was when I was still drawing in pencil, not ink. I drew the bison in this little sketchbook the size of an index card. I still think it is a good idea to carry one with you wherever you go.

The bison was hardly recognizable as a bison but that was because of the way it was sitting. (As I make excuses for myself.) I remember I was happy with it. I went as far as to pompously initial it. To initial it pompously. My dad was an English and Latin teacher and he taught me not to split my infinitives.

May 3, 2018.

How the time flies.

But the buffalo is a constant here in Buffalo.

Sketching at the beach

 

Yesterday was a day to celebrate. It was almost 80 degrees! 

In Buffalo! In late October!

And so I went to the beach. We have the Pods for this purpose but we did not need them. Instead a group of us just gathered. At our height I believe there were seven of us. Plus strangers with whom we were interacting.

And their dogs!

A big poodle named Hannah came bounding up and ate the last piece of cheese off our cheese board! Then she kept trying to get into my backpack because she knew there was more cheese in there!

The dogs were playing fetch in the water and sailboats kept gliding by. It was a wonderful day off.

It is a challenge to sketch on the beach because the usual things I love to draw are not there. There are no traffic signals or parking meters or goose-neck street lamps or Do Not Enter signs.

Ha, ha! Once my sister Katie suggested I go with her to Allegany State Park where there is beautiful nature. She said, "You can draw there."

I said: "Draw what??"

LOL! Anyway at the beach I come up with sketches like the one pictured above. I did that the other day in the Pod.

Yesterday I sketched some dogs and sailboats and then simply zoned out and breathed the air and watched the sunset. 

It is good to zone out once in a while.

God rested and so should we!

Confessions of a Pod Person

My friend Ryan and I have bought Pods and now we are able to sit out in all weather.

Under all weather! The brand name of the pods is Under the Weather. It is not a perfect name because, you know, when you are under the weather you are sick. The subtitle is better. The pod package announces, "Be There -- Weather Or Not!"

That is accurate. You can be there, weather or not! These are little pop-up tents and as long as you do not mind looking a little silly in them, which we do not, the sky is the limit.

Still our goal in getting the Pods was simple: to go and sit on the beach in them. That is what we have already done because here in Buffalo the temperatures have already dipped. That is a picture of me up above that Ryan took! It shows me drawing in my Pod. 

The pods pop up very easily, almost without any help. You tie them down with a few stakes, which is also easy, even for me. Folding them back up again is more of a challenge but Ryan is helping me learn. There is just a little knack to it and I will acquire that.

As long as I can master that, I can see how useful this will be to me as an artist.

I love to draw, ahem, plein air. That means you are outside, as opposed to looking at a photograph. I am never happier than when I am beholding a scene and getting ready to get it down on paper. There was one day, I remember it was 95 degrees or something, and I was in downtown Buffalo settling down on a scorching bench, and I was totally blissed out because in front of me was this huge Art Deco police station and cars all around it, everything ready for drawing.

And didn't I sit there, all afternoon!

Maybe someone should invent an air-conditioned Pod for those occasions! Meanwhile we have this one. Ryan has reported, and it is true, that even on a chilly day, if the sun is out, the Pod heats up. When we tested them the other day they warmed up even under cloudy skies. We were impervious to wind and rain and that is a wonderful thing. That hat I was wearing in the picture quickly became unnecessary.

I will be able to draw whatever I want!

I can set the thing up in Niagara Square if I feel like it and take another crack at drawing City Hall.

Have Pod. 

Will draw!

The long and narrow sketchbook

Right before the Wuhan Flu curtailed my shopping, I went out to Hyatt, the great art supply store that happens to be just a couple of minutes from my house, and I bought a bunch of sketchbooks. That was smart, you know? Anyway, one of the sketchbooks was long and narrow.


It is Strathford and made of recycled paper. It is just cheap lightweight sketch paper and it cost $6 something.

This is turning into the best $6 something I ever spent in my life!

I am having so much fun with this sketchbook. When I bought it it was with the thought that it would make me see new possibilities in what was before my eyes. I would make it a game to find scenes that lent themselves to these new dimensions.

And it has worked out that way! It has been fun!

There are 50 sheets in the sketchbook and I think I have done 22 drawings so far. I have not torn one sheet out of the book, either. Not that I forbid myself to, it just has not happened.

Because the paper is so lightweight, or because I am not thinking commercially, I take a very relaxed approach with these drawings.

Here is the police radio station in Delaware Park.

I drew that yesterday. It was chilly but the sun was out. After that I sketched the little golf course kiosk, closed because of the virus. Notice now I have on gloves.

Then I thought I was going home but stopped to draw people hanging around outside the closed zoo, by the shuttered Cup & Cone.

The other day I drew the Cyclorama Building downtown. That is it at the top of the post!

 When I am through drawing something it is traditional for me to page through the whole sketchbook and review my work. I am doing more "serious" stuff in between these but I have to tell you this, these narrow sketches are a lot of fun.



I have done a million of them in Delaware Park. I had thought I had sketched everything there was to sketch in Delaware Park but this book opens up a lot of new possibilities. I'll have to post more of the Delaware Park pictures. There are about a dozen of them, I want to say.

I have done a lot of tall pictures too, not just long pictures. I can't wait to show them off.

I will have to do a Long and Narrow Sketchbook Tour!

Through the Presbyterian looking glass

Today I stopped in my day and did a quick sketch of this massive, fortress-like edifice that used to be Central Presbyterian Church. It is in Buffalo's Parkside neighborhood.


It is funny, the things right in your own back yard that you pass a million times and never look at! This was one of them. Since I have been drawing I notice so much more. A few weeks ago I stopped for the first time in my life and noticed this place. I said out loud, "What in the world?"

It is so huge!

What I drew was just a back corner!

When I got home I looked this church up on one of our Buffalo architecture websites. I did not know what the name of it was because it is a school now. I found out the name and I learned that when it was built in 1911, it was the biggest Presbyterian church "east of the Mississippi," and that the architect was one Williams Lansing, who was very distinguished.

Lansing, it turns out, also designed Holy Family Church, where I was baptized. And a whole lot of other buildings, many of them churches, both Catholic and Protestant. He himself was Episcopalian. He was one of the founding members of Buffalo's Canoe Club. He is buried in Forest Lawn near the famous Fargo plot which I pass many times while walking. Listen to me! I am now the clearinghouse for all things Williams Lansing. I am a fan!

Looking up something like this is dangerous because you go down the rabbit hole and can waste hours if you are not careful. I was also fascinated by the history of this church;s erstwhile congregation. There is this one article by James Napora -- fascinating all the way through, but I will just mention for starters the nicknames.

Organized as the Pearl Street Presbyterian Church, they quickly erected a log meeting house on the west side of Pearl Street just north of Genesee Street. Built at a cost of $300, the building contained over 500 seats for a congregation of only thirty-five. It became known as the "ecclesiastical blacksmith shop" as it resembled a large blacksmith shop.

The congregation grew rapidly and within two years, with almost 200 members, they built a new church. Modeled after the Parthenon, it had an oval interior lit by a stained glass skylight. This feature earned it the nickname of "goose egg church."

From the Ecclesiastical Blacksmith Shop to the Goose Egg Church!

And we are not through yet.  A few paragraphs later you read that "between 1849 and 1851, the congregation now numbering 475, worshiped in the basement church referred to as 'Dr. Lord's Icehouse.' "

Dr. Lord was a person in town. He was not the Lord. Just to clear up any confusion.

What a history! How could anyone do it justice?

When I go back to this place I'd better bring my big drawing board.

The oldest houses in Buffalo

Today my friend Meghan and I went out drawing in Allentown. We stopped in a coffee shop where we found a good view of the city's oldest houses.


Buffalo's oldest houses sit on Allen Street one after another. There are three in a row, maybe more but I have always considered these three the oldest. I drew two of them. There they are up above.

As I worked I had to come to terms with an uncomfortable truth.

Pretty as the houses are, and old as they are, what really interested me was the "Do Not Enter" sign and the fire hydrant.

I am still a young enough artist that the bends in the street still amaze me. Every time I sketch a scene like this one, I cannot get over the scale of the houses that stretch down the street. I have to be very careful as I go forward. Those houses around the corner, they take up only a few millimeters beneath the eave of the house on the corner.

That is incredible!

I keep holding up my pen, checking, marveling.

Only when I got it down did I let myself sketch in the "Do Not Enter" sign.

Cool things to look at are everywhere. When I was taking a break I stopped in the coffee shop's restroom. and I saw this:

You have to wonder how many beers went into that logo.

Genius!

And earlier today I took this picture of Jeoffry in his holder.

So many images.

So little time!

West Side story: Sketching Holy Angels

I hate New Year's
What's wrong with the old one?
Resolutions...
Who could ever hold one?

Our great friend the cabaret artist Guy Boleri penned those immortal lines in his musical version of "A Christmas Carol." Scrooge sings them.

Much as I love Guy's musical, I am no Scrooge. I love Christmas and I love New Year's.

Resolutions? I am full of them!

One is to write in this Web log every day in 2020.

Another is to sketch every day.

OK, with both resolutions I think I will make it six at least out of every seven days. Because there will be one day once in a while when you just cannot get to it and then you do not want to bog down.

But so far on the sketch front I am doing pretty much perfectly!

I have gone out every day in 2020, minus one because it was impossible. And I sketched the last three days of the old year as well.

One thing I drew was Holy Angels Church, pictured above, on Buffalo's West Side.

Now I will sound like my old Web logger self and point out that this was Leonard Pennario's church when he was a boy. And when he came back to Buffalo in the last year of my life and I met him, he asked to go back to the church and have a look. We did that.

Pennario had his moment and gazed at Holy Angels. He said, "She looks beautiful."

That is an old-fashioned thing that I love. Ships and churches are feminine and so are a lot of other things.

My great-uncle Andrew, the Rev. Andrew Kunz, was treasurer of the order of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (Pennario always referred to them by that full formal name) and was at Holy Angels for something like 50 years starting in 1905 or thereabouts.

All these things were in my head as I sketched. So was F. Scott Fitzgerald who also went to Holy Angels School, for a little while anyway. I kept thinking of him, of Leonard, of my Uncle Andrew.

I also brooded about Holy Angels closing. It is scheduled to close next year, I mean this year. What a crying shame. I am glad it was still open when Pennario went looking for it. So I thought about that too.

Then gradually as happens, all the thoughts fell away and all I thought of was shadows and angles. That is a wonderful thing about drawing. Your mind gradually clears of everything except what you are working on.

Here is a photo I took when I was through in case I needed to refer to it. I try to remember to do that when I am folding up and getting ready to go home. The sun finally came out!

After drawing all week I can say that the sun has been out during that time for all of 10 minutes, total. This is bogus, you know? I can see why John Singer Sargent liked to work in Italy. I tried to get the sun in there when it came out. You always have to work fast because it will not be there long!

That happened again to me today, the sun coming out late and just for a bit, when I was drawing a shopping strip with a hair place and a halal market. Buffalonians can try guessing where I was. I think I will post that one tomorrow.

This is my year!

I will be unstoppable!

Summer in the city

As I write this, thunder is booming outside and rain is pouring down. The cat is in the window, fascinated.

We have been having this wonderful summer of weather and this sudden storm bears it out. It is like Camelot. The rain can never come till after sundown.

This evening I got on a bike and went to our historic Buffalo tavern, Ulrich's. I sketched Ulrich's from across the street. I had only about an hour before it began to get dark and I got back on the bike and pedaled home. Before I left I took the picture up above, just for reference. Tomorrow I will post my sketch. It is awesome! Well, I was happy with it, I will say that.

While I was drawing I was thinking: Grover Cleveland drank in that tavern! Odds are my great-grandfather drank in that tavern!

Did my great-grandfather know Grover Cleveland? That is a question to ponder.

When I was nearing my house it was the most amazing thing. There were people everywhere. Kids were swinging on the swings across the street from my house. Couples were walking with baby carriages. People were walking their dogs. All along the street you saw people on the sidewalks, people on their porches.

The city was alive!

It is like this all summer but especially in the last days of summer. The motorcycles too are roaring down the streets. Writing that, I am all of a sudden affectionate toward them. Everyone feels the summer is leaving.

We must enjoy it while we can!

The art of Kmart

I did another Buzz column -- yikes, what is this, week five?

I cannot believe I can be this consistent! Of course miracles happen when someone is holding you to a deadline and Howard is. I am like a trained horse. I need deadlines.

One thing I loved about this week's column is I got to work in my sketch of Kmart, up above, which I am crazy about. Urban sketching at its finest!

Kmarts are falling right and left but ours here in North Buffalo has been dodging the bullets rather well. I did the above picture from my car on a cold day last winter.

Kmart is not Monet's pond of water lilies but it is something. I loved drawing the carts. I always love the details.

I did the Kmart sketch for my friend Ryan who loves Kmart but I would have drawn it in any case and Ryan knows that.

One day I will paint Kmart in the style of Monet, Van Gogh, and John Singer Sargent.

That reminds me.. I may have mentioned, I have that kind of New Age-y habit of writing my goals, every morning. You write things in the present tense, as if they have already happened. And lo, it comes to pass! At least that is the idea.

Every day I write: "I draw and paint like John Singer Sargent. I play the piano like Leonard Pennario."

Now we shall wait and see!

We discover Columbus

Yesterday my friend Meghan and I went to Columbus Park and drew the statue there. I sent Howard the photo up above and Howard posted it on Facebook with the title, "On this day, Mary discovered Columbus."

Which I love! But it goes deeper than that.

You never know when that statue of Columbus will be gone!

Every year Columbus is back in the limelight on Columbus Day. He has been dodging bullets for years. Somebody does something, douses the statue in red paint, vandalizes it somehow. He stays standing there stoically, handsome in his Renaissance pantaloons, holding the territory. Every year, after Columbus Day, there is a kind of thanksgiving. Columbus lives to see another year.

Whether that will happen again is uncertain. I understand a sign is nearby saying Columbus is to be removed. I did not see that sign.

Who is going to get the statue?

Can I have it?

Just a few weeks ago we all saw the reproduction of the Santa Maria in the harbor and we all loved it, as you can see in my picture.

About the statue of Columbus, can we all just get our heads together here?

People demanding this statue come down should take a step back and admit something -- that they do not know the first thing about it. Nobody does.

We all would have to do our homework and go back and read Columbus' original letters which, who has the time to do that. We cannot believe everything we read these days. Heck, we cannot believe anything we read. We have to check it out for ourselves. We have to do research and read centuries-old documents.

Until we have a chance to do that, can we just leave the statue up? Just an idea.

It is a beautiful statue. The foundation reads that it was dedicated by the Federation of Italian-American Societies and by the Public-Spirited Citizens of the City of Buffalo. That is a description I love.

Columbus Park was beautiful when we were there. A woman was sitting on a bench reading a book. Hours passed and she was still there and so were we. It was quiet.

Except -- I almost forgot this -- this big brown-and-white bird kept swooping around, making this big loud call I never remember hearing. It was magical, this day, this place.

I want this place to stay, as it is. With the statue.

I want Columbus to stay so I can sketch him again!

Back to the Buzz

Once upon a time I wrote the Buzz column for The Buffalo News. It was a kind of gossip and humor column, things going on around town, lots of fun.

I am bringing it back.

For fun!

My friends have been asking for it, I am happy to say, ever since Howard raised the possibility of me writing it again on a lark. We could now incorporate my drawings.

It sounded nuts at first but then there is nothing wrong with that. And when I got to thinking about it I realized it could be a kind of a sketch diary for me. I could do pictures and riff from there.

Here is my first.

There will be another next week.

People on Facebook have been great about sharing it. It really warms my heart. The first column featured for starters the sketch up above. That is of the Parkside Meadow, this tavern near my house. It is kind of my corner tavern. If someone says, "Let's go grab a glass of wine," that is often where we go.

It may take a few weeks for the new Buzz column to reach equilibrium but I have no doubt it will happen. I did that column for a million years. Week after week. It hardly lapsed at all. I guess it lapsed for a few months while I was in California with Leonard Pennario but otherwise it kept going. When I went on vacation I wrote it in advance. When I got married I Buzzed my own wedding, writing about ways in which the ceremony and reception ran off the rails. I will have no problem picking it back up.

I am looking forward to it!

An alley in the sun

The other day I went sketching with my friend Meghan and we wound up in an alley off Edward Street. That was where I drew the picture at left.

I think it was off Edward Street because later we went walking up the street and drew Founding Fathers Pub and I do not remember turning any corners. I will have to learn to take notes in these situations because in the future biographers will be interested in them.

It is like Leonard Pennario taking notes because one day he knew I would want to see them. I am not making that up. He told me that.

You must always take notes because you never know what your biographer might need.

Back to Edward Street, at least where I think I was. The sun was bright and I loved the shadow on the wall of the house on the right. I also loved how the fire escape on the house at left cast shadows on the brick. We are seeing too little of the sun this year if you ask me. Whenever the sun is out I want to go out and make hay and that is what I did.

It was chilly but sunny and you know what, I do not care if it is chilly, I just want that sun.

I wonder if the weather this summer will ever pull itself out of the crapper. I kind of think not.

But so what. Whatever it is, I will roll with it.

Just give me some sun here and there, and I will be happy!

A morning in the Japanese garden

This morning the sun was out and so I took my sketchbook when I went walking in the morning. I found myself at the Japanese garden.

Decades from now when scholars debate the deep meaning of my work they will point out that this picture has philosophy behind it. In the foreground is the Zen of the Japanese garden. In the background you may make out trucks and cars barreling along the expressway.

Yin and yang! That is not Japanese, I do not think, but it is close.

That is a strange little sculpture and yet I love drawing it. I love the curve of the legs it stands on. It is a funny thing, drawing in ink. You do not get a second chance if you goof something. Well, you can turn the page and start again. But that is the only second chance you get.

And so I get in the zone. I make sure that the line is supposed to go where I am about to draw it. That is what makes pen better than pencil to my way of thinking. I discovered that last fall when I did Inktober. With pencil you get too sketchy and just start anywhere. With a pen you must have a plan.

Somehow the legs of this sculpture just draw themselves. And pen does stone so well.

The rocks were fun and so was the grass.

Here I am working on it.

The sun had gone in by that point. It was there and then it was not and then it was again.

La la la la la la la.

It was a beautiful hour or so I passed drawing that picture. It was warm and sunny for once and I feel good that I was out there in it. I was so relaxed and the air was so fragrant and now that it is raining again as usual I wish it were this morning again.

I wish I were back in the Zen zone!