On a Sunny Spring Day

Tags

central park, diana camera, new york city, photography, plastic camera, toy camera

Today I walked through Central Park twice. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, a relief after the long, chilly spring. The park was full in every sense — throngs of people, the road filled with runners and cyclists, branches in full blossom, the trees past the pale green of early spring, their leaves dense and bright.

I thought it would be fun to post a few Diana photos that take us from the spare days of winter through the melting waters of spring and into the lush fullness of summer. Few things are prettier in New York than Central Park in May and June.

Making Art Like a Little Kid

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art, drawing, fine art, making art, self criticism, sketchbook, sketching

Most people who work in the arts know one thing for sure: we’re our own worst critics. It’s easy to get discouraged by looking at great work created by others, or by picking apart our own work until we don’t want to show it to anyone because we think it isn’t good enough.

One way to get around this is to create a place to play, where self-criticism takes a back seat to the great feeling that we had when we were little kids, when we made art without a second thought, totally absorbed and unselfconscious. How many kids look at their drawings and say, “this isn’t any good”? All I remember is proudly showing my art to anyone who’d look. And I’d try new things without hesitation. Make a drawing out of macaroni, glue and a piece of paper? Yes! Build farm animals out of Playdoh? Sure! Sculpt a giant alligator in the snow? Okay! I didn’t feel like I needed to take a class to learn technique before I dove in. Imagination was everything. There was no such thing as frustration, just the joy of play.

Now, my place to play is in my sketchbooks. I have a few going at once, full of scribbled sketches, scraps of paper, notes on ideas, and little drawings. Everything’s jumbled together and it doesn’t matter because nobody’s ever going to see it. I can happily romp around because it’s just for me. It took me a little while to get there, though.

Way back in art school, I drew this walnut.

I stuck it into a recent sketchbook to remind me that when I’m loose and relaxed, I draw better, and that this is how I like to draw — casually, easily, without hesitation, confidently. But sometimes it’s so hard to do because that critical little voice in my head won’t shut up.

I keep this drawing I did years ago of my friend Diane to remind me that I used to be comfortable drawing people.

I don’t draw people anymore because I get too fixated on getting a good likeness and end up frustrated. So how did I draw Diane? By not trying to get a likeness, by being relaxed and open until the drawing came together and it suddenly looked like her. By not trying so hard.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out that I’m more likely to get a drawing I’m happy with if I chill out, so eventually, drawing became a way to unwind, a way to clear my brain and find that pure concentration of fun, like when I was a kid.

A few things I like to draw:

Twigs. Why twigs? Texture, I suppose, and the bumps and dips. I don’t have to explain, it’s in a sketchbook. Nobody’s going to see it.

Stuff I find on the ground. Why isn’t the leaf finished? Who knows?

I like drawing my art supplies.

The corners of rooms, little portions of places. A bit sloppy. It doesn’t matter.

Small buildings. This is Tom’s little house near the beach. Messed up the roof on the left. No big deal.

Big buildings. This is a streetscape near Madison Square Park in NYC. A little trouble with perspective? Oh, well. Whatever.

I love playing with my nephew, Lukas, who’s now almost eight years old. He’ll say, “What do you want to make today?” We’ll pick a topic, like sharks, decide between crayons, markers or paint, then start in on one sheet together. We’ll color for hours.

So when I’m frustrated and unsatisfied with whatever art I’m working on, when that little voice starts saying, “it could be better,” it’s time to remember what it’s like to play with Lukas. If I can shift my mindset and tap into the feeling of making art like a kid, the sheer fun of romping around with my paints and pencils, well, then… problem solved.

Pinhole Portfolio: From Mansion to Museum

Tags

architecture, architecture of new york city, museums of new york, new york city, old new york, photography, pinhole, pinhole photography

Once upon a time, toward the beginning of the 20th century, wealthy citizens of New York City build mansions. Before apartment buildings came into vogue, Fifth Avenue above 59th Street was lined with opulent free-standing homes, built by industrialists, bootleggers and bankers, interrupted only by the occasional hotel or private club.

Most of these sensational mansions were destroyed to make way for apartment buildings, but some survived by becoming museums or cultural institutions. Today, anyone can visit these converted former homes, a few still sporting their original decor, and imagine what life was like during the Gilded Age.

I’ve shot a few pinholes of these beautiful buildings. We’ll travel north to south down Fifth Avenue.

This is the Andrew Carnegie Mansion, at 2 East 91st Street, now home to the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, a fantastic place. It has a beautiful entry way. The mansion was built in 1903, intended as a “modest house” and was the first American home to have a steel frame.

Here’s a photo taken just after it was built in. Modest indeed!

At 2 East 79th Street you’ll find the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion, now home to the Ukrainian Institute of America. The house was completed in 1902 and sports all sorts of fantastic gargoyles and mythical creatures carved in stone.

Here it is after its construction.

At 1 East 78th Street sits the James Duke House, a 40,000 square foot limestone mansion completed in 1912. It was donated in 1952 to New York University to serve as its Institute of Fine Arts.

Just after construction.

Between 70th and 71st Street lies the former Henry Clay Frick House, now housing one of the preeminent small art museums in the U.S., The Frick Collection. The mansion was built in 1913-14 and was one of the most opulent homes on the Avenue. Below is a pinhole photo of its private garden on 71st Street.

In this photo, shot after construction was completed, you can see that the house runs the whole length of the block along Fifth Avenue,

Although this mansion isn’t on Fifth Avenue, it’s a big favorite, so I’m including it. It’s the Pierpont Morgan Library at 33 East 36th Street, built in 1906 to house the library of JP Morgan, who had a townhouse next door. This gorgeous building was designed by McKim, Mead and White.

All sorts of modifications have been made to the building and its adjacent spaces, but the original Library is intact, and if you’re an art lover, it’s a jaw-dropping place. Not only does the Library contain a large collection of drawings by artists like Leonardo, Michelangelo and Rembrandt, it also holds three copies of the Gutenberg Bible, one of Henry David Thoreau’s journals, original scores by Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin and others, not to mention the original sketches for one of my all-time favorite books, “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. It’s unbelievable that so many incredible works are under one roof. Plus they hold fantastic exhibits of works on paper.

The library just after construction.

Two beautiful Fifth Avenue mansions that I haven’t photographed yet have become museums. One is the 1914 William Starr Miller House, on the corner of 86th Street, which is now the Neue Galerie, a petite museum with a stunning collection of early 20th century German and Austrian art and design. If you’re a fan of Gustav Klimt or Egon Schiele, this is the place to go. Here’s the house just after it was built.

A bit further north is the Felix M. Warburg House at 92nd Street, an ornate beauty built in 1908 in an early French Renaissance style. It was donated to house The Jewish Museum in 1944.

Many of the mansions that once lined Fifth Avenue led short lives, despite the vast sums spent on their construction. I’ll finish with old photos of a few of these palatial beauties, built to showcase the wealth of their proud owners.

The Vanderbilt house, completed in 1882, was demolished in 1926. It was known as the “Petit Chateau.”

The William A. Clark House, built in 1908, was torn down in 1925. It was known as “Clark’s Folly” for its over-the-top design, which included 121 rooms and its own private underground rail line to bring in coal for heat.

The Elbridge T. Gerry Mansion was completed in 1895 and destroyed in 1929. Its occupants enjoyed a central heating system and a library that housed 30,000 books.

Sometimes when I walk along Fifth Avenue, I imagine what it was once like, the streets filled with horse-drawn carriages and the avenue lined with one lavish house after another.

Finding the Balance Between Control and Chaos

Tags

decorative painting, faux finish, glass, interior design, marble, painted glass, vgb

Sometimes I like to think that with fourteen years of experience, there’s no project I haven’t done. And then one of my clients comes along and proves me wrong.

One of my favorite clients is a designer I’ve worked with for over ten years. He likes to invent finishes. He’ll say things like, “I’d like a finish that looks like light rain falling on a pond,” and send me off to solve it. After a bunch of experiments guided by suggestions like, “A little more rainy” or “Have you tried flatting oil?” I’ll figure it out and before you know it, a room will have a finish that looks like raindrops.

Recently he asked me to paint a large glass table top, about seven feet by four feet, to look like marble. “Well, that sounds like fun,” I said, “but you know, I’ve actually never painted on glass.” His reply? “Really? Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” There’s a lot to be said for the motivating force of someone who thinks you can do anything.

After a series of experiments, I did figure it out.

The interesting thing about these jobs is that two things are discovered: new painting materials or techniques and fresh knowledge about the bigger picture. So besides learning that Martha Stewart has a great line of glass paint in a gorgeous palette of colors, the job became a lesson in finding the balance between exerting too much control and not enough.

The glass was set up on a large table in my client’s office, supported by small blocks of stone wrapped in rags to lift it off the table a bit. Below, I’ve started the main veining. I drew it out on a piece of paper first, then jumped right in.

I’m painting what will become the underside of the tabletop. The painted surface can’t be the tabletop; it would look bumpy and strange and could be scratched, so when the painting is completed, the glass is flipped over, the pattern shows through from beneath, and the tabletop’s surface is clean glass.

Because of this, whatever is painted first is on the uppermost layer when the glass is flipped over. This means I’m painting backwards. Instead of working from the background to the foreground, the usual marble painting method, I’m doing the opposite.

This is the view from the other side. The approved sample is in the foreground.

Any material used to make art has it characteristics; it behaves in a certain way depending on factors like viscosity, the substrate it’s applied to, the tool used to manipulate it, the solvent, and so on. One of the surest ways to become proficient at an art or craft is to understand materials and how they behave. This will allow you to create conditions that will help materials fully express themselves to their greatest potential.

Below, I’ve built up the first layer of paint. The thick glass makes everything look green; the palette was white and taupe with a touch of pale steel blue used as accents.

While experimenting, I learned that the best results would emerge if I guided the paint using certain tools, but then stepped away to let the paint settle as it pleased to create its natural patterns. I couldn’t step away too soon, though, or I’d end up with a chaotic mess. The paint needed to be controlled, but only to a point.

By the end of the first day, I’d covered the entire surface with veining.

Depending on its viscosity, acrylic paint will pool, separate and dry in a particular way. I saw that if I created the right conditions, the paint did most of the work, I just had to guide it. The challenge wasn’t painting on glass, it was letting go of trying to completely control the result. The more relaxed and loose I was, the better the outcome. This made it easy to get into that sweet spot of flow, where time disappears and it’s just a day of playing with paint, letting things happen almost on their own, everything coming together like magic.

The second day was spent like the first, building up the paint to total coverage, since leaving unpainted glass would allow you to see through it, which would spoil the illusion of stone. Below is the completed finish.

Here’s a close up. The colors aren’t accurate, but you can see the patterns.

And a tighter closeup of the same area.

Once it was dry, the surface was varnished for protection. If I ever get the promised photo of the tabletop in place in its new home, I’ll post it.

The moral of the story? Know your materials, know your own nature, and learn to recognize when it’s time to either take charge or get out of the way.

Inside Central Park: The Arcade at Bethesda Terrace

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bethesda terrace, central park, interior design, minton tiles, murals, new york, photography, the arcade, travel

One of the prettiest places to visit in Central Park is Bethesda Terrace. When the park was designed, the Terrace was intended as a place where people could congregate, a spot to see and be seen. It is still considered the heart of the park.

The Terrace divides into an upper and a lower level, with flanking staircases connecting the two. I was shooting the carvings in the east staircase’s balustrades here, but you can see the Terrace below with its fountain on the right. Beyond is the Lake and the woods of the Ramble.

It’s a great spot for a pinhole photo. Here we are looking south from the Terrace into the entrance of the Arcade.

What’s the Arcade, you ask? It’s the passageway under 72nd Street from the street level to the terrace. A wide central staircase descends from above and takes you down into its shadowy depths. The Arcade is amazing.

Handcrafted art surrounds you.

Bethesda Terrace and the Arcade were one of the first structures built in Central Park, begun in 1860. One of the most beautiful features of the Arcade, which is easy to miss if you’re distracted by the murals and the gorgeous architecture, is its spectacular Minton Tile ceiling. The ceiling, designed by the British architect and designer Jacob Wrey Mould, who also designed the Terrace’s decorative carvings, was installed in 1869.

The ceiling is made up of 15,000 encaustic tiles produced by England’s famed Minton Tile Company. Encaustic tiles are made by pressing individual colored clays into tiles before firing them, instead of painting on colors with glaze. Each tile is handmade. The Arcade is the only place in the world where Minton tiles are used to decorate a ceiling.

The ceiling is divided into 49 panels, each containing 324 tiles featuring floral motifs and geometrical forms. There are only two panel designs; the difference is found in the center tile, which is either a small rosette or a large pinwheel.

How much do 15,000 tiles weigh? Oh, about 50 tons. After a hundred years, the ceiling began to fail and in 1987, the tiles were removed. Happily, the ceiling was fully restored in 2007.

In 1991, the walls of the Arcade were painted in 24 trompe l’oeil panels of Botticino marble designed to look like inlays and bas-reliefs. The compositions were inspired by the original ornamental designs of the Terrace’s staircase panels and from sketches completed by one of the Park’s architects, Calvert Vaux.

The artist who completed this work, which is now sadly deteriorating, is Lucretia Moroni, who studied under Lorenzo Mongiardino, one of the most famous decorative painters in the world. The panel below is a flat surface. Many of these murals were vandalized by graffiti artists in 2009 and subsequently cleaned, which may have weakened the paint.

 

 

 

 

 

What I like best about the Arcade is how well it fulfills its intention. It was designed to act as a counterpoint to the open, bright, bustling terrace outside, to serve as a quiet, ornate space. And it does. Its confines create a hushed, dim gallery, a burst of colorful art above and all around, with quiet corners full of visual surprises. It’s like briefly diving underwater, an unexpected reprieve before once again entering the busy park that surrounds it.

How Do They Do That? Painted Woodgrain

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decorative painting, faux finish, faux woodgrain, interior design, mahogany, oak, rosewood, woodgrain

Apartment doors in New York City have to meet two criteria: they must be fireproof and self closing. A fireproof door can be either a kalamein door, which is wood wrapped in steel, or a hollow core steel door, which is found in newer construction. So no matter where you live, whether on Fifth Avenue or in a tenement building, your front door is made of steel.

What does this have to do with painting wood, you ask? Lots! If you own a gorgeous apartment and your foyer is paneled in mahogany and furnished with all sorts of swanky stuff and your front door is ugly old steel, what do you do? You paint your door to look like the wood in the rest of your foyer, that’s what.

This door has been painted to look like mahogany. The molding is painted as well, to create a 3-D, or trompe l’oeil, effect.

Painting doors as wood grain is one of my favorite projects, and has always been a steady source of work. No matter how much design trends come and go, a front door that’s made of wood (or appears to be) is always beautiful.

This door matches the simple wood closet doors in this entry foyer.

Painting wood seems complicated, but it’s actually not. It’s about two basic things, pattern and color, and once you understand how to see wood in this way, you can imitate almost any wood.

Most woods can be broken down into three layers: the flogging layer, which represents the pore structure, which are the tiny dots that are found in almost every wood; the figure grain, which is the pattern created by the sap; and the toning layer, which is the overall color of the wood. Each layer has a different color and pattern. Therefore, if you can look at the real wood you’re matching and can recognize and visually separate the color and pattern of each of these layers, you can paint them. And if you’ve seen it all correctly, when the layers combine, voila! Wood. Obviously this takes a bit of practice, but once you get it, you’ve got it.

In this working sample, each layer was taped off after completion, so you can see how layers and color build up to create a pattern. In this sample, a fourth layer called the crossfire layer was added. Notice the color of the base coat in relation to the final result. The base coat is always lighter than the final finish while tilting toward the wood’s deepest color. Most woods receive a final coat of varnish as well.

Each layer uses different brushes to create a specific pattern. Here’s a quick sequence of the process of painting a dark straight grain mahogany. I paint wood grain using water-based glaze.

The sample board is painted in a terra cotta colored latex base coat.

The glaze is applied with the chip brush on the right, then flogged with the flogging brush on the left.

The dried flogging layer.

Next, the figure layer glaze is applied. In this case, the figure is a straight grain, so it’s a simple downward drag of the chip brush on the right. The pattern is softened with the badger brush on the left.

Here’s a close up.

The layer needs to dry before continuing. Finally, the overglaze of the toning layer. This is a dark one. The base coat is much lighter so that there’s contrast between the colors, which helps the wood gain depth. The overglaze is applied with a soft spalter brush.

Again, the glaze is softened with the badger brush.

Once the glaze is dry, the surface is varnished with an oil-based satin varnish for more depth and protection.

Here’s another straight grain mahogany in a redder version.

This is a sample of a browner mahogany figure grain.

This wood is anigre. It’s painted with the fourth layer of crossfire over the toning layer.

This is a close up of painted rosewood. I love this wood, it’s so pretty. You can clearly see the specks of the pore structure here.

Wood doors are almost always painted to match other wood in the room and because of this, they are often assumed to be real. Sometimes faux wood molding is painted on as well, as shown in the first photo. Painted wood grain will almost always be mistaken for real wood if it’s painted where one would expect to find real wood. If you’d like to learn more about our lazy brains, it’s explained here in my post about trompe l’oeil.

This is an interior door made of wood. Unfortunately, it was made of the wrong type of wood. I painted it to match the surrounding oak cabinetry of the bathroom. Here you see the completed pore and figure layers.

Here the door is complete, with the final toning layer and varnish.

This is a close up of painted oak.

If you live in an elevator building, the elevator doors are made of steel, too. If you’re lucky enough to have an elevator that opens directly into your apartment, then you may want those doors to match your foyer or entry vestibule as well.

The real wood door is on the left; the painted elevator doors, with faux moldings, on the right.

So the next time you’re in New York, standing in front of an elevator door or an apartment door and you think you’re looking at real wood, look again… you may be wrong!

A Quick Trip to Toronto

Tags

architecture, black and white, bricks, canada, cn tower, ontario, photography, toronto, travel

Last Christmas, Tom gave me a gift of a long weekend in Toronto, Ontario, and last weekend, we made the trip.

On Friday, we hopped on our flight out of Newark, NJ at 10:30 a.m. and touched down in Toronto before noon. A quick drop off of the luggage at our hotel, and we were walking toward Little Italy in no time, the perfect place to be on Good Friday. As we ate our lunch, we watched the crowds gather for the annual Easter Parade, while the parade’s Grand Marshall enjoyed his pasta across the room.

The audience is gathering on College Avenue.

On Saturday, we jumped onto a streetcar for a ride downtown from our hotel on West Queen Street West. The route we took, the 501, is almost 25 km of track from start to finish. The streetcars, nicknamed Red Rockets, are gorgeous! I like the complicated wires they create overhead. (This was shot on Sunday, on Spadina Avenue looking south.)

We were headed toward the Distillery District. As we entered the District, we were greeted by these two sculptures. They remind me of the creatures that came to life in Guillermo del Toro’s movie “Pan’s Labyrinth.” I wouldn’t want to meet either in a dark alley.

The Distillery District is a group of 47 Victorian industrial buildings, once known as the Gooderham & Worts Distillery. The buildings were carefully restored a decade ago using 19th century materials merged with modern materials and green technologies. Today, the District is a wildly popular cultural center, housing theaters, design shops, art galleries, and restaurants. It’s beautiful!

Did you notice that the buildings are made of brick?

Because Toronto is built on a former lake bed (it’s perched on the edge of Lake Ontario), brick has always been cheap and plentiful. Don Valley Brick Works, which is now closed, provided bricks for thousands of commercial, industrial and residential structures in the city. Today, brick is still the most popular choice for residential construction.

We noticed the brickwork right away. On the street, these two beauties caught my eye.

Although brick is a simple, humble material, masons use it with great skill to create architectural interest with clever use of pattern, direction, texture and color.

Look at this! Bricks in a circle, bricks stepping down, arching over a door, playing horizontal movement against vertical, you name it.

The same techniques used on simple houses are used on fancy ones. An equal opportunity material! On this modest home, notice the way the teeth of the pattern wrap around the side of the house, how altering the brick’s direction creates architectural interest over the windows and how base of the house lifts up by using lighter bricks below.

On this grand house, some of the same methods are used but with more detail, along with horizontal bands and playful patterns below the edge of the roof.

It looks like these neighbors couldn’t agree on the preferred design.

We stayed in the Art and Design District, formerly a derelict part of the city, resuscitated  by artists 25 years ago. Today, it houses the largest concentration of art galleries in the city, along with a slew of little shops, bar, clubs, restaurants, and the Musuem of Contemporary Canadian Art.

I liked the murals that were scattered along the streets and alleyways.

One of the things that we noticed about Toronto is that much of its original architecture is in place. Although there are plenty of shiny new high rises, many of its industrial buildings have been restored for commercial and residential use, while the hundreds of three-story mixed use buildings that line the avenues have been neglected instead of replaced. It makes for a dynamic combination of old and new.

This former industrial buildings is now full of residential lofts.

The warmth and history of the neighborhoods are preserved with the survival of these quietly worn little store fronts (notice the brick!)

On Sunday, we enjoyed a tasty brunch before heading over to Kensington Market. Kensington Market is a living history of Toronto’s reputation as one of the most multicultural cities in the world. The market is a dynamic mish mash of spice stores, fruit and vegetable stands, clothing and vintage shops, restaurants and cafes. Unfortunately, on Easter Sunday morning, it was quiet as a mouse, so back on the streetcar we went, making our way toward the CN Tower, which looms over the downtown core.

At 1,814 feet, the Tower is the fifth largest freestanding structures in the world. Originally conceived as a telecommunications tower, somebody woke up and smelled the money and realized it would be a great tourist destination. Thus modified, it now attracts millions of visitors a year. No big surprise, since the views are incredible.

Looking to the northeast, straight into the downtown center.

Looking west, that’s Lake Ontario.

Then it was time to head back home. Even though we saw only small slices of this city, the biggest in Canada, we loved its warmth, friendliness, diversity, great transit system and good food. We’ll be back.

Pinhole Portfolio: Structures in Central Park

Tags

black and white photography, central park, new york city, photography, pinhole photography

One of the reasons that Central Park is so beautiful is because no new buildings are permitted within its perimeters. Despite numerous proposals for restaurants and entertainment or sports venues, if they can’t be accommodated within existing structures, they are refused.

Although the original structures were built to house items as diverse as sheep, weaponry and toy boats, with the help of restoration they are still in use today, although their function may have changed.

Below is The Arsenal, which predates the construction of the Park. It was built as a munitions supply depot in 1851 and now houses the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. If you go inside, don’t miss the 1930s WPA murals in the lobby. You can even see  the drawing of the original Park Plan on the third floor if you make an appointment.

This is The Dairy, which didn’t house cows, but was a source of fresh milk and snacks for children in the 19th century. It lived a brief, depressing life as a maintenance shed before restoration in the 1980s transformed it into the Park’s first visitors center.

This is the beautiful Kerbs Boathouse at the Conservatory Water, just off of Fifth Avenue at 74th Street. The original wooden boathouse, which fell apart in the 1950s, was replaced with this pretty little brick structure. It houses toy sailboats, which navigate the adjacent pond. This is where E.B. White’s mouse, Stuart Little, sailed his boat.

Although Cleopatra’s Needle isn’t a building, I’ve included it because it’s striking and unusual. Its base is held up by metal crabs, holding their arms and claws aloft. It was received as a gift from Egypt in 1881. Its sides are covered in hieroglyphics, which are sadly deteriorating from acid rain.

Throughout the Park you’ll find a handful of places to shelter from the rain, known as Rustic Shelters. They’re built to appear as if they’ve been assembled from branches and are totally charming. This one is perched on a rock outcropping just east of Fifth Avenue at 68th Street.

One of my favorite places in Central Park is the Bandshell, just south of Bethesda Terrace at 72nd Street in the middle of the park. It’s used for many events, from live opera on warm summer nights to a stage for impromptu performances. Martin Luther King gave a speech here once, and both Irving Berlin and Duke Ellington have graced its stage. You never know what’s happening at the Bandshell!

Here’s a winter shot from the other side.

I’ll finish with a shot of The Carousel, which is one of the largest carousels in the US and receives about 250,000 visitors every year. Who doesn’t love a carousel that you can ride for $3.00? This beauty is the fourth to grace the Park since 1871, two of which burned down. This 1908 treasure was found abandoned on Coney Island and transplanted here. In the picture below it’s all closed up for the day.

When it’s open, the music lures you in, along with the 57 gorgeous hand carved horses, which are considered to be outstanding examples of American folk art. One day I’ll write a post about carousel horses because they’re so beautiful!

Travel Sketchbook: Mapping it Out

Tags

art, Australia, drawing, florida keys, france, italy, maps, sketchbook, sydney, travel, uae

I’ve been keeping a travel sketchbook for twelve years now. No matter where I go, one kind of drawing that makes it into almost every trip is a little map.

Drawing out excursions, whether made by foot, boat, train, car or plane, helps to remind me of the little moments that I might otherwise forget. It also helps me to understand the geography of where I’m traveling. By looking at other maps to guide me as I draw, I learn more about the place I’m visiting.

Here’s a little map of a walk I took in Sydney, Australia.

Sometimes I’ll start off a trip with a global map to emphasize the distance traveled.

Or an overall view of the destination.

At other times I’ll document a small excursion, like this London walk…

or a particularly memorable day, which in this case was a day spent puttering around Sydney Harbor in a little motorboat.

I draw with a black pen, filling in with Prismacolor pencils. I like Prismas because they’re waxy, they don’t bleed if they get wet, and the colors can be blended, so I need to bring only ten colors along.

Sometimes I’ll draw the route of a long drive. This is on the North Island of New Zealand.

This was my path by train through Italy to the French Alps in 2004.

In 2006 it was off to Australia again. My sister lived there at the time, and this was my third visit. This is Magnetic Island, off the eastern coast of Australia, near Port Douglas. My sister and her husband owned a house there for a few years. Koala bears perched in the trees, Kookaburras visited us in the morning for their ground beef treats and a bird called the Bush Stone Curlew screamed all night long. Quite a memorable trip.

In 2007, we planned a family trip through Scotland and the UK. My black pen was on its last legs.

2007 was a fun year. In the fall, I went to Australia again. We planned on visiting Ayers Rock, now called Uluru. Where is it again? Oh, right, smack in the middle of nowhere.

While on our way to Uluru, we visited the gorges of the West MacDonnell Range, a beautiful area near Alice Springs.

Here I tracked the routes we skied over four days in Zermatt, Switzerland in 2008.

By 2010, my sister had moved to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Abu Where? Notice that the Persian Gulf is named the Arabian Gulf from this vantage point.

Abu Dhabi is an unusual city, composed of a group of natural and manmade islands.

In 2010, off to Florence!

I tried to keep a daily record of our epic treks around Florence. It got a bit messy! Sometimes it’s good to know when to start a new map.

And to close, our drive on our most recent vacation to Vancouver and the Olympic Peninsula. May there be many more maps in the future!

An Excursion to Upper Manhattan

Tags

cityscape, hudson heights, landscape, new york city, photography, travel, washington heights

When some people think of Manhattan, they think of Times Square or Central Park or the Theater District or the Financial District or some other popular spot. But near the very top of Manhattan Island is a beautiful little neighborhood called Hudson Heights.

Hudson Heights, also called Fort Tyron and Fort George, is the northernmost part of Washington Heights, a long stretch of the city between 155th Street and about 190th Street, bound by the Harlem River on the east and the Hudson River on the west. As you can see from the map below, the east side of Manhattan disappears above 142nd Street, as the Harlem River veers west in its quest to join up with the Hudson.

I live on the Upper East Side (bottom red X). As the crow flies, Hudson Heights is about 6 miles northwest (top red X). But if I walk across Central Park and catch the A train on Central Park West, I can be there in about 35 minutes.

Upper Manhattan has two gorgeous parks. Fort Tyron Park, which starts at 190th Street, is 67 acres and houses a branch of the Metropolitan Museum called the Cloisters, a building reconstructed from five French cloisters, exhibiting 3,000 medieval European artworks.  Inwood Hill Park, at almost 200 acres, sits between 200th and 218th Street, making it the northernmost park in Manhattan. It has caves which were used by the Lenape Indians through the 17th century. It also contains the largest original forested land on the island and one of the only salt marshes. Both are high above the Hudson River with beautiful views in all directions.

In fact, the topography in Hudson Heights is so stark that the neighborhood is divided into The Hill and The Valley. Here we are on Bennett Avenue in the valley, looking up toward the hill. Look at the support under those apartment buildings!

If you want to get to the top of the hill, let’s hope you have a car, because if not, up the stairs you go. The highest natural point in Manhattan, 265 feet above sea level, is near the top of these stairs.

What’s not to love about the hill? Who wouldn’t like a spot perched on the river, looking at the beautiful George Washington Bridge?

Hudson Heights is a fairly new name for the area; it was once called Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson for its dense population of Germans and Austrians. Many of the buildings are Art Deco, completely preserved, with dramatic lobbies and original details.

Here’s where I’d like to live, hovering above the Hudson River, in this picturesque series of 1920s-era apartment buildings with their beautiful lead paned windows and Tudor design. So charming.

What’s not to love about a front entryway like this?

Just a few blocks further north is the entrance to Fort Tyron Park. In keeping with the rest of the area, it’s built on many levels, with stairs running up and down in all directions. I ate my lunch here, overlooking the water.

The Cloisters is a short walk away in the northern end of the Park. The building is peeking through the trees.

Everyone you walk, there seems to be another level. It’s like a big three-dimensional puzzle. Notice the street lamp high above the pathway.

This is the Henry Hudson Parkway, the highway that hugs Manhattan along the river. The structure on the right supports the overlook of the park built upon it. It’s possible to get all the way down to the water, but I don’t know where the path is.

A final view, looking south towards the Bridge. Just around the bend is the rest of Manhattan.

I love it up here. It feels so different from the rest of the city, with the wind blowing off the water, the beautiful old buildings and the dense trees creating a buffer between the land and the river. But if I hop on the super-speedy A train, in 20 minutes I’m smack on 59th Street and Central Park West, in the thick of things again. The best of both worlds.