Sketches in New York City by Eric Farache

My friend Alan and I started with a coffee.

On the 6 train, there was a delay so I got out the sketchbook and pen.

Yup, even in the sweaty subway people were all bundled up.

I drew this sketch while overhearing some teens talking, it was heinous and fairly graphic. I think if you grew up in NYC you would be a sleazier more foul version of yourself- just a thought.

By evening fall, it was even colder, I slipped into this bar not far Chinatown, called Home sweet Home. Loud, but warm! I relaxed and drew some of the characters.

This was before it got too packed.

I drew this double drawing of the bartender while having a boozey afternoon, at the back of this place called Bread.

I really did leave the canal/chinatown area!

The Neue gallerie had some beautiful Egon Schiele drawings on display, more than you see if you go to the Albertina drawing gallery in Vienna ( but that was based on my trip in the early 90s, might have been one of those things when you go and everything is closed), so that was a treat but I mostly just looked at it all.

If you go to NYC soon, you have to go to the Neue Gallerie, its focus is Austrian/German work -- amazing stuff. Also, have a coffee in the Cafe Sabarsky, it is a highly regarded dinner spot. I was there on Saturday and the lineups to eat were astounding.

A little sketch I made about a year and half ago while drinking a $6 Viennese coffee, it was good but six dollars? I know, I know, it New York baby.

Art Shows-ongoing

I found the time to make it to the AGO, in truth, we went to Frank the restaurant, the snacks are great, the mixed drinks are too sweet for me.

Anyways, speaking of art, we stuck around long enough to check out the Julian Schnabel retrospective, a superstar of art, according to the AGO.

Really interesting to see the work, still after all these years I don't really get the broken plate paintings, I hope never do in a way.

Having said that, the painting that really touched me was the black velvet painting of Andy Warhol. Interestingly, this painting and the ones around it were in an intimate space not the volumes of air and concrete the AGO committed to this New York Big Mouth who has all but referred to himself as a modern incarnation of Picasso. For all that loud clothes and his bravado, there is something exceptionally touching in this piece he must of saw in Warhol, whose by his own accounts was fairly vacuous, so this painting dialogue between big mouth and superficial is something much greater than the sum of their parts.

here is an article from the Globe and Mail, see what they have to say


Maybe I am a sucker for velvet paintings ever since we had a red bull fighter in our dining room that my Dad painted.

Here is that painting, in the basement with an illustration on top of it from a series of photo/paintings of mine from 2006.



Julian Schnabel: Art and Film

continues until January 2, 2011, take your honey and have some fries and booze at FRANK.