Trip2012: Day 14 - Tea, France and Danny!

August 9, 2012 | Leave your thoughts

My third day in NYC… and it is hard to find the words to describe what happened this day…. (warning this is a VERY long post!!!!)

as you can see from this page I bought some tea (in fact I had already run out of the Earl Grey tea that I had brought with me from home… didn’t expect to find any EGT of note in Santo Domingo)
Really enjoyed drawing the maps during my NYC visit and I am very pleased that I managed, without pushing myself too much, to draw the map each night before I went to bed (I might not have finished it… but the drawing part was done!)
(BTW there is a little inaccuracy in the digital version of this map for privacy reasons!)

As I wasn’t meeting anyone till midday, I had the perfect opportunity to get some typical Liz-style sketching done beforehand… what about a tearoom and a nice complicated building? Yes, you guessed it! First stop and very impressive tearoom in Greenwich village. I was the first (and only) customer and had a great time sketching the interior (I am trying to draw more than just the cup of tea)

But of course I drew the tea as well…Dorian Grey tea. It was sensational! The scone was not quite an English scone but still nice. Had a wonderful time talking to the staff and got some Matcha tea(first time ever) to go and some tea for my evening cuppa.

Here is the lovely girl that made me feel so welcome. It is always so special to find a good tea house and get some special treatment.

Ok… looking like rain… I just had to sit down and do a ‘decent’ architecture sketch before I start talking again. I knew what I wanted to sketch… Jefferson Market Library in Greenwich Village, what a delightful building. I am very happy that this visit to NYC (as opposed to 2010) I had the confidence to stop on the sidewalk, sitting on my stool to sketch. Coming straight from a symposium, I felt compelled to draw the view as it was from where I was, but I was dissatisfied with this as I hadn’t really described the building adequately….

… so I did ‘just one more sketch’ before I had to walk at high pace to make my meeting time. Drawing on an angle (a symposium inspired idea from Daniel Green and the gate to the fort that I had drawn on the last afternoon) is quite fun as it sends my brain in a little bit of a spin!

Meeting France Belleville!

I can’t tell you how excited I was to meet France… but I think that you can tell what kind of time we had together by the smiles on our face! Her work could not be more different from mine – it so totally blew me away to see it in real life!!!!!

We sketched sitting and talking on the Highline at 23rd street on a cool grey day…

Of course, I had to do a second sketch! Actually, if you hadn’t realised this, the second sketch is an important part of my sketching adventures. I am more in the groove often on the second sketch, and as it is only a partial view, it gives me some white space to write notes… hey, that is what I had done 3 times today already- before lunch.

After lunch, we used our combined confidence to sit right in the middle of the sidewalk… something to this date, I don’t think I have ever done. A bit of a scrappy sketch (I learnt some things attempting this page…(might try to write about it later) but to try to make something I could live afterwards, I beefed the tones up a LOT…too much in fact but it is hard on a dull day at times!)


France sketched on her ipad which was a lot of fun!!!

A walk up 8th avenue and then one more sketch – I love the views of water towers in NYC – something I didn’t manage to sketch last visit. So sad to have to part from France…but we can keep in touch online …and I had another sketching meeting to get to…

…but first one more sketch at Washington Square Park as a ‘pause-moment’ between my excitements!


I had an evening with Danny Gregory!!!!

Really wonderful to met the man who has had so much influence on my sketch-journally. My dear friend Eza introduced my to watercolour pan paints, but through Danny’s blog and books, I discovered ink and wash, moleskines, lamy safaris and noodlers ink… but also most importantly how to illustrate my daily life! So it was an honour to meet him, and also his son Jack, and to sketch this view with him.

A few photos…

I just had to draw this cup didn’t it? It was the cup that featured in a recent video of Danny’s. We had a truly wonderful few hours, sketching, and chatting about sketching. I felt like I had know Danny for years and it was quite mind blowing to flick through his actual sketchbooks and see some of the pages that had really moved me in recent times. It is always special to connect the real person with the artwork, I find this with every online friend that I meet.


I was hoping to meet Tommy Kane as well – but that didn’t happen…however we did see a Tommy original. I also held a book made by Roz Stendahl. Sorry about blurry photo

To read about Danny’s very kind post of my visit click here

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