Christie’s Spring Auction Preview (larger)

I’ve just returned from a short trip to Manhattan for a couple of days of sketchcrawling. The highlight of my trip was getting to meet fellow sketchblogger Shirley and her husband. We spent a lovely day making and looking at art.

We visited the Spring Previews for upcoming Impressionist and Modern auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, where we saw quite a few memorable pieces on their way from one private collection to another. Shirley and I sketched details of some of our favorites. We had a lovely lunch too, and ended the day with a glass of wine and sketch talk while finishing up our pages.

Shirley has quite a number of completed sketchbooks filled with wonderful work. Looking through them was a pure delight and so inspiring! Isn’t it fun to peer into the sketchbooks of other artists?

Sotheby’s Spring Auction Preview (larger)

See More Sketches from New York

Shattuck Avenue (larger)

The view from my car, parked on Shattuck Avenue, in North Berkeley at twilight.

I’ll be in New York City again in a couple of days: any suggestions for what to visit and/or sketch?

Berkeley Symphony #1 (larger)

I recently attended the Berkeley Symphony and sketched the musicians during the performance. As I’ve done in the past when sketching in a theater, I did the ink work in the dark and added the watercolor later on.

Initially when the lights came up these sketches looked like a bunch of squiggles. But as I began to paint what I could recognize, more and more hidden shapes - arms, bows, violins - revealed themselves.

Berkeley Symphony #2 (larger)