“Aikido is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba, known as  “O Sensei’ or ‘Great Teacher’. Aikido focuses not on punching or kicking opponents, but rather on using their own energy to gain control of them or to throw them away from you. It is not a static art, but places great emphasis on motion […]

 Today Margaret Hurst and I went to see a women’s basketball game at Columbia University on 113th St. in Manhattan. They played North Carolina, and unfortunately, lost. But Marg and I had a great time drawing. I couldn’t decide whose body language I enjoyed more: the basketball players, the cheerleaders, or the coach. The players are […]

Christmas at Rockefeller Center – I never get over the thrill, and I’ve lived here my entire life. I took my class to Rock Center today and had a chance to do a bit of drawing myself. I got a great spot near the rink and held my ground against the throngs of tourists. I can’t blame […]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This drawing is from the “official inflation” of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons that happens every year on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Now that’s a kind of inflation I can get behind! It’s really nice, everyone comes out to see it and just walk around celebrating the holiday. It happens […]

There is nothing like November in New York. I painted this yesterday: it is the view out my back window. It was raining all day, windy and damp. Each rain drop brought down two or three rust or ochre colored leaves with it, hastening Winter’s arrival. There is something so melancholy and also so beautiful […]

 Last night Margaret Hurst and I drew the annual Halloween parade in Greenwich Village. What a blast! I hadn’t really seen the parade since I was in college, and it was fun to stake out a bench on 6th Ave with Marg and get involved with it. The crowd was the best part of the parade – they were really […]

Just returned from Grand Central Station in New York, where I took my class from Parsons the New School for Design to draw. We got into a discussion about reportage, what it is, why it’s so important, why I love it! So, what is reportage? Wikipedia defines reportage as: “the reporting of news, especially by […]

Our last good shot at summer weather came this past Sunday here in New York City. Fortunately, I spent much of the late afternoon at the park by the bridge in Queens, New York. What a lovely way to end the summer. Damn, I hate to see it go – I feel like taping the […]

After years of teaching illustration at Pratt Institute, Parsons the New School for Design and our own Dalvero Academy, the advice to “practice drawing people in the subway every day!!” has come back to me full circle. Above is a small drawing I was commissioned to do for the Columbia University magazine, illustrating a light-hearted story about an older […]

 In honor of the anniversary of September 11, 2001, I am posting a photo of one of my drawings from 9/11 on view in the Newseum in Washington DC.  The experiences I had that day will always stay with me. My thoughts go out today to everyone who was tragically affected on that sunny Tuesday. …thanks […]