General Electric Building, Part 2

The General Electric Building Lexington Avenue at 51st St.) was completed in 1931 and represents one of Manhattan's Art Deco gems. Given landmark status in 1985, the 51-story building served as GE's headquarters until operations moved to Fairfield, CT, in 1974. In 1993 General Electric gave the building, by then roughly two-thirds empty, to Columbia University. I'm not sure about its current status, but I do know that Columbia was partnering with several firms to redevelop and restore the building to attract new tenants. I love the Deco details, especially the clock, with its thrusting hands symbolically harnessing the power of electricity.

General Electric Building, Part 1

Education

Found these adorning an older elementary school on the Lower East Side, just on the edge of Chinatown.

St. Patrick's Day

While walking home last night . . . the Empire State Building adorned in green lights for the occasion.

Washington Square Arch

Shots from Washington Square Arch yesterday . . .

While walking to work this morning . . .

Nothing spectacular here, especially in terms of composition. Just some snapshots of the views I encountered on Fifth and Park Avenues this morning.

Broken Windows - In Memory of Andrew Wyeth

Looking through Andrew Wyeth's painting following his recent death, I was reminded how nice the drybrush technique could be. But I also knew it could prove time-consuming as one worked to find that perfect - albeit minimal - amount of moisture to transfer the pigment to paper. Too much water and one loses the drybrush effect. Too little and it becomes difficult to dab more than a few faint, wispy strokes with each loaded brush. (Sometimes the faint brush strokes are desirable, of course.) Executed correctly, however, drybrush proves perfect for rendering texture and depth in a piece. When not using his preferred egg tempera medium, Wyeth would use drybrush for landscape and architectural textures that can prove elusive in straight watercolors. In "Geraniums," for example, Wyeth used a combination of watercolors and drybrush to paint a through-the-window study of Christina Olson.

This painting, my first attempt at incorporating the drybrush technique into my work, is based on a series of images I took along Route 10 in Virginia's Isle of Wight County. I knew that watercolor washes just wouldn't give me the desired weathered texture of the window frame. I debated whether or not to allow enough light in the picture to reveal hints of the building interior. In the end, I preferred the reflected opaqueness of the intact windows with only the tattered curtains visible, while leaving the interior dark - and thus a bit mysterious or foreboding. 9" x 12", watercolor, drybrush, pen and ink, on Fabriano paper.

Ernest Flagg

Shooting photos of interesting architectural elements recently, I ran across a couple of buildings that immediately grabbed my attention. The Singer Manufacturing Company building, a 12-story structure, was designed by Ernest Flagg and completed in 1904. Flagg's design represented a departure from the thick masonry walls and small windows that defined architectural style at the time. The Singer building would feature an innovative structure of iron and glass, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering far more light than other buildings. Even its colors - red and green - proved innovative exceptions to the dull marbles and granites that punctuated New York's streets.

Today the building holds co-op residential units and commercial spaces. It received a renovation in the late 1990s that included significant work on the facade.

Mills House No. 1, in photos 2 and 3, is on Bleecker St. between Sullivan and Thompson Streets. Completed in 1897, the 11-story Mills House, designed to provide inexpensive housing for men in the city, it had 1,560 single-room-occupancy spaces that were no more than 5 by 7 feet in size. When it opened, the hotel charged 20 cents a night, and 10 to 15 cents a day for meals. (Mills also built two other single-room-occupancy hotels in Manhattan.) Converted to apartments in the 1970s, Mills House No. 1 became a co-op building in the 80s.

Although I didn't know it at the time I was taking these photos, Mills House No. 1 was also designed by Ernest Flagg. This structure doesn't possess the more innovative design elements of the later Singer Manufacturing Company building, but did reflect Flagg's keen interest in "fireproof construction, daylight, ventilation and housing policy."

Soho Fire Escapes, Part 2

Soho Fire Escapes, Part 1

This weekend I finally had the chance just to wander for a couple of hours and take a few photos. Walking in Soho I noticed the great variation in fire escapes on the late 19th century buildings. Some are quite ornate in their metalwork, while others reflect a simple utilitarian design.

Chrysler Building

Yesterday morning I was rushing through the bitter cold to reach Lexington Ave. and 30th Street to meet a friend for breakfast and, as I waited for the light to change, looked uptown and saw the Chrysler Building just twelve blocks away. I still think it's one of the prettiest structures in New York City, more breath-taking than even the Empire State Building.

Perry Street Revisited

If you've followed this blog from its early days you might recall this subject from an earlier work. I first painted this window and fire escape on Perry Street about two years ago. One of my favorite paintings, I included it in last year's show and sold it to a woman for whom the subject evoked memories of her family's World War II-era Harlem apartment. I was sorry to see the picture go - but happy to have sold a painting.

At the time I promised myself to revisit the picture - sooner rather than later - but didn't take up the project until a couple of weeks ago when I made the initial rough sketch. Last week I realized it would be a perfect image for a detailed pen and ink drawing with watercolor washes. So for the last several days I've worked until 1 and 2 a.m., squinting through my glasses to get the India ink details just right. Once that was done, the watercolor portion moved rather quickly. This time the image is slightly larger - 9"x12" rather than 8"x10" - and I cropped the view just a little. The results, I think, are as satisfactory as the original. And this version I will not sell! On to the next project! (9" x 12", pen and India ink, watercolors, Fabriano paper) You can click on this thumbnail for a larger image.

More from Scott Farm

Some miscellaneous details from the ca. 1864 barns . . .

Barn Door, Scott Farm

After about two weeks of work, I finally finished my latest project. Although the subject is typical for me - a closely focused architectural element - the process proved a bit different. Although I've used pen and ink highlights in other paintings to accentuate key details or more clearly define the boundaries between objects, I haven't really used that medium as the foundation for a painting. There are those artists who employ consistently the pen and ink drawing/watercolor wash combination. Among early watercolorists, for example J.M.W. Turner, a carefully rendered pen and ink drawing nearly always represented the "bone structure" of a study, while muted washes from a very limited palette formed a secondary element.

Having studied this mixture of media over the last month, I decided to experiment more extensively with pen and ink. The result is this tightly-focused study of a barn door and rusty hinge from Scott Farm in Vermont. As you might have seen from many of my earlier farm photos, the wood on these 19th century barns displays incredible variation in weathering. Some boards retain large patches of whitewash and others stand with their intricate grain patterns bared to the harsh Vermont winters. In the end I was happy with the results, but recognize that this can prove a time consuming process on more intricately detailed subjects. Wood grain isn't easy to create! (9" x 12", pen and ink, watercolor, Fabriano paper)