Start of the Solo Art Show

Starting today I had opened my first ever solo art show I Titled "Seeing the City One Drawing at a Time - Snap Shots by Hand." It is 5 years worth of sketches of me riding the Rochester buses.
Each day I will try to touch on one or two of the drawings and what they are - or why I drew them. Below are 4 to start. I challenge anyone going to the Transit Center to go by the Show and find one they want to know more about, take a picture and post it here - asking me to talk about that one. I will do my best to explain the piece.
These started out as just an excercise tool for me but grew into much more. Check out each below for it's description

This is my Title piece. It is drawn from the pedestrian bridge over High Falls. It is now a very tranquil, beautiful scene. The roar of the water drowns out the sound of the railroad and the interstate in view. And you can get a good over view of the city's history from here from it's industrial beginnings to now.

My self portrait, Early on here in Rochester I rode the bus late at night. That made the bus windows into mirrors. On one occasion I looked over my shoulder and saw this. It intriqued me and I knew that all arist's try to do at least one self portrait in their life times so I jumped in and sketched this one out. 

 
Drawing during the winter time gave me some of my most memorable people to draw. Very often their clothes covered up much of their faces. But it was an opportunity to find the spirit of that person without using the most obvious clues. This man fit that bill to a tee.

 

 
By far my most unforgetful person to date. Even though the drawing seems to be very rough(bouncing bus), I did my best to depict this man with the dignity he was trying so hard to express. He got on the bus barely able to walk due to a partially paralized leg and right arm. He was wearing new shorts(tag still on) but the zipper was down. He struggled into his seat and got himself situated. By his look I guessed that he may have had a stroke sometime in the past. His eyes fought a battle with his own brain to maintain that air of dignity and I wanted to show him in that struggle to be normal.

 

Snap Shots by Hand

Like a Man carrying a hidden camera I have worked for the past five years to get quick snap shots of the people and places around me and it has payed off for me.

Drawing someone can be less conspicuous and very obvious at the same time.  However, it is more acceptable than walking around with a camera.  It can also be much more personal in its' results.  LOL - sometimes I feel like the tiny animal inside the stone cameras from the Flinstones cartoon.  Furiously chiseling a picture on a flat piece of stone.

Most of the time I have an average of five to ten minutes to get the drawings done since the person will get off the bus.  So I concentrate on the emotion of the scene.  That too is often easy - what with it being early morning or late evening - most of the people I draw are sleeping or off in their own world.

For this entire next month of August those five years of sketches will be on display at the Transit Center, downtown Rochester NY.  I will be taking the 3rd off to go down there and set up the display and to meet with several people about the show.  Please take some time to come to the Transit Center and check it out.  I will however be talking about the show from time to time over the next month.

National Order of the Arrow Conference or (NOAC)

So I was asked to draw up some patch designs for the local BSA OA contingent that was going to this summers national conference for OA or NOAC.  Having designed the patches for the last National Jamboree I learned a few things that I applied to designing these new ones.

Of course there were rules that had to be followed, but beyond that I could have some fun.  As anyone in Scouting knows patches do depict something about the scout or the troop or OA, but they are also for trading and selling.  What trades the best are pop related themes.

But what relates to the local chapter mascot a white deer  that hasn't already been done.  It took me a week to come up with one.  The Patronis spell of Harry Potter.  It was a perfect fit.  I pitched it the the boys and they loved the idea.  However the next step was to depict it is a way that it was obvious yet did not require a bunch of paperwork to get permission to use it.  That came about with this patch design above.  A scout with round glasses in silhouette holding a smoldering stick from a camp fire.  Behind him swirling up is the smoke forming a white deer and in the background.  On each tent is a silhouette of the two earlier mascots for this area, the turtle and grey wolf.  And finally, in the background, instead of Hogwarts, there is the silhouette of the Rochester NY Armoury.  This became the "Contingent" patch.  The artwork above was the design and the photo below is the final piece.

They then asked me to come up with two other patches for them to vote on.  The one below with a dementor being attacked by the white deer, more closely allied with Harry Potter.

Which they had created as such

And one that was a bit more whimsical that I designed as such

And they produced as such

As you can see they decided that they wanted all 3.  Two strictly for trading and selling and the first one as their primary one.  In all there were four sets made

The primary one in both gold and red border.   The Gold for them to wear to NOAC and the red to sell or trade and then the other 2.  I was flattered and, again I learned something new to take away with me when I design more in the future.  All in all it was a lot of fun.

The Rochester Warner Family Legacy #7

The Powers building.  It is by far my favorite building of this group.  This is an example of pride going hay wire.  When this building was originally designed and built it was only 5 story's high.  It is very evident in this picture where that was. The roof use to be right where the fancy red brick work ended.  And it was heralded as a beautiful building then.

Then came the competition.  You see, across the street was another new building that was designed and built taller because the two building owners were always in competition with each other.  So the owner of the other building could say he had the taller building.  Well, not to be out done, the owner of the Powers building had the architect design and the contractors build his higher.

The other owner then added more to his and finally the Powers building got its tower and flag pole and that is where the feud ended.  The end result is a hoge poge of styles mixed together on the Powers building.  It has stood the test of time and is one of the cornerstone landmarks of the city of Rochester NY. 

This image here was created using a photo I took as it stands today and a photo of it back in 1910.  I do lament that the ground floor is nothing more then glass now, the most of the rest of the building is as you see it here.

The Rochester Warner Family Legacy #6

Well - have been busy with working from the call center for the past month and a half giving me little to no time to work on this site when I get home.  But, there are 3 buildings left to talk about in this series so I will push to get through them. 

Here is the Warner Castle.  It was designed as a residence in one of the richest parts of Rochester.  It was designed by Andrew Jackson Warner with(it is believed)input from his son.  It stayed within the family it was designed for for many yrs. Then sat empty for many more. 

During its occupancy the husband contracted and built  what is now one of the wonders of the city.  The sunken gardens.  Wanting to emulate the grand English - hidden gardens they created a jewel right in their own back yard. 

Now it is a tourist attraction and a fought over venue for weddings and parties.  But the site is well protected from development, giving us a well preserved piece of our past.

The Rochester Warner Family Legacy Day 5

The Rochester Savings Bank is still a bank, but, now it is Citizens Bank and only the main floor is the top floors are now owned By RIT the local tech school.  This big block of a triangular building is imposing and seems to be rooted in place.

But, that is exactly what was aimed for when being designed.  Some buildings are tall and slender and reach for the sky and others spread out or flamboyant.  This building however is solid.  What you want in a financial institution. 

In trying to depict this building as it once looked when originally built I had a hard time finding good photos to go by.  I had to go by a sketch done of it at the time to get the original entrance.

Not too much to go on but enough to make an educated guess.  This building is wedged behind the current
Sibleys building and now faces the Liberty pole.  I took the photo of the building to get the angle the same as the sketch.  You can see right away why it was just a bit of a stretch to recreate the original entrance.

The Rochester Warner Family legacy Day 4

For the Annual Landmark Society Auction I was asked to come up with something that would stand out.  The "Free Academy Building"  had always caught my interest so I decided to create a framed piece of it as it looked before the turn of the century.  Built in 1873 it replaced the 2 story building before it.

It was a Victorian Gothic revival style.  Instead of paint to adorn it various types of stone were used to create the look of decoration on this building.  Really, today, the only difference is the lack of a smoke stack and no cast iron railing on the roof.  Otherwise, this building is exactly the same today.

It was the first building in town that I noticed needed some TLC.  Its roof was missing several sections and I could see right into the attic space.  Walking around it I could see it was vacant.  Imagine my surprise when I was walking around the area one day several years later and I noticed a new roof.  While downtown for another event that I ended up missing so I walked over to it.  There was a cafe open and I made friends with the chef and later met the new owner.  A wonderful example of rescuing a jewel of the city.