Drawing of First Street, Boyle Heights (Los Angeles), ink on paper in Sketchbook No. 62, 25 July 2012, about 11″x17″
This is a fairly quick streetscape sketch I did in Boyle Heights. It’s from the front entrance of Eastside Luv on First Street just east of Boyle Avenue. The drawing captures the view looking toward downtown L.A., which is visible – skyscrapers on the right. Mariachi Plaza is immediately to the right of the drawing. The hotel where a lot of mariachi musicians lived (think it’s the 1889 “Boyle Hotel Cummings Block”) is on the right edge of the drawing, fairly dark and unrecognizable. I was there this week for a fundraiser for Eastside coverage for L.A. Streetsblog.
I grabbed a fairly cheap brush pen for this – not the good one I’ve been using a lot, but a different kinda felt-tip marker kinda brush pen that I paid $1.50 for… and it’s not much of a pen for detail or subtly… and it feels like the ink will start fading in about a day… but once I start I generally won’t switch pens.
One thing about cheap felt tip pens is that they don’t go down as smoothly black as nicer pens… so I scanned it and upped the contrast… but, not being particularly proficient at digital manipulation of images, I think it might look better photocopied, because that tends to flatten out the blacks. (But, at least for this blog, I try to just post, and don’t worry too much about manipulating the images until they’re just right.)
My friend Elsa took this photo of me, my sketch and the subject matter:
Photo of me, my book and Boyle Heights – by Elsa Greno
I’ve been doing quite a few streetscape sketches lately: see here1, here2, here3 and more coming soon, too.
Handmade Ransom Notes 
wow!
hey if you’re anywhere near a Daiso they have some good $1.50 brush pens with several different tip sizes 😉
Is Daiso the name of the Japanese $1.50 for anything store? I went there in Irvine, near where my brother lives – and that’s where I picked up a half-dozen brush pens. I like the refillable Japanese-Pentel one that my friends Yuki and Federico gave me.
yep, that’s it! They just opened two in my area this year 🙂
Hi i love your sketch! Is it possible that I can use it for the BH Art Walk? Im
yes – I will email you about it!