A week in New York: Summer 2011

It’s always exciting to go to New York: so much to see, so much to do, to eat and to sketch. And so many old friends to see. But it all begins with a long flight ( or if you have cheap tickets, a couple of flights with a long layover between them). Hari and the kids sleep. I sketch.

Since we’re traveling with a 4 and a 6 year old, the first museum we hit is the Natural History Museum. The kids are suitably impressed with the dinosaurs.


My favorite rooms are the ones with the dioramas. The African animals room has a huge sculpture of a herd of elephants. It’s really impressive and dramatic, but the weary museum-goers that sit on the ring of benches around it don’t even seem to notice it.

I loved the McQueen show at the Met. Incredible stuff. But there was just no way I could sketch in there. It was more crowded than a street in India. So I sketched where my kids hung out: the Egyptian section, Arms and Armors…

I love the view from the rooftop. The shapes of the trees below and the clouds above echo each other, and a string of skyscrapers is sandwiched between them.

Outside, a musician plays while we decompressed on the steps.

I tried capturing the big blank spaces that is the architecture of the MOMA. The huge walls and narrow, tall windows make the people seem like little colorful bugs scurrying around.

And here is the famous Jackson Pollock canvas.

So many buildings to draw: the Chrysler Building, the Empire State, the Flatiron, Brooklyn Bridge…

When the kids were museumed out, we hit the parks. Madison Park had Jaume Plensa’s Giant Sculptural Head.

And Sheep Meadow in Central Park is always fun.

Breakfast at Pick-A-Bagel, with it’s giant bagels and bialys. I sketched there two mornings.

The fruit-seller by the subway station.

Construction on the street.

And a couple of subway sketches:

You can see more sketches from my trip here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sketchaway/sets/72157627175686656/with/5928666545/