There is one thing of which you can be certain: If you are looking for one esoteric shop in New York City, you can find at least a dozen of them. At least that was the case during most of the 20 years I lived there. Things gradually changed. For example, I used to have quite a choice of used book stores to visit. One of them, the Gotham Book Store reminded me of that scene in The Big Sleep where Bogey met Dorothy Malone to find out about Geiger, the crooked owner of the book store across the street. Across the street! Can you imagine? One can’t even find a book store in a mall these days.

But I digress…

Today’s experiment:

I did a couple of sketches from my photographs of the Sutton Clock Shop (The Clock Building, Inside). This store was in a walk-up on Lexington at about 60th street. Today’s sketch is from a photo also taken on Lexington, at about 24th or 25th street. I don’t remember if I ever saw ‘The Clock Doc’ when it was open, but I loved photographing shuttered storefronts. The geometry and the graffiti attracted me.

The Clock Doc
4″x6″ 140# Mixed Media Paper

I used pen and ink for the sketch and colored pencil for most of the coloring. The paper I used was a very smooth mixed media paper (a Bristol-like finish), that didn’t accept watercolor too well. I had to guess at the colors, since my photo was black and white. Until I find my colored-ink pens, I have to sketch my mini-graffiti with colored pencil. I did not attain the tonal value range that is apparent in the photograph (see below), but the ‘The Clock Doc’ is a nice study.

The Clock Doc