City Scapes: The Blacks

These drawings illustrate the abstraction that occurs on a viewer’s perception of architectural forms when atmospheric, weather conditions or artificial light as influencing factors are applied. But not all of these observations came to me at once. I had begun, during my nocturnal wonderings around my SoHo loft, by picking up charcoal and drawing pads. Using the window as a delineating framework, I drew large, quick studies in black and white of the ethereal forms I observed. Beginning in black and white allowed me to accentuate forms and lights and darks. It also allowed me to work quickly and loosely, recording the most significant impressions of abstractions of forms, shapes, lights and darks. A tight rendering would have been anathema to my intent to explore the ambiguities of space and apparent layering of shapes and diffusion of lights.