Meet the correspondents: NEW YORK CITY > Butch Belair

"I'm a photographer and digital artist living in Brooklyn. Perhaps because I work in advertising where many hands shape my work, drawing is something I do for myself, like a meditation: sitting for long stretches of time, calmed by the varied forms, texture and fabric of the city and how they are changed and shaped by light. I appreciate the press of time and striving to keep my composure as the light rapidly changes, hoping to capture the small details without losing the overall mood. I aspire to be focused and open at the same time, constantly intrigued by what something actually looks like, as opposed to the idea of it in my head. I drew a lot as a kid, but lost interest for reasons I can't recall. A few years back I started drawing again with a pen and a sketchbook and have since been testing my hand at watercolor. Now, if I could, I would do little else."

• Butch's art on flickr.

November correspondents

Three talented sketchers join the blog in November. Introductions to follow soon.

• Luis Ruiz, Málaga, Spain.
• Eduardo Bajzek, São Paulo, Brazil.
• Butch Belair, New York City.

Tug Tug Tug Your Boat

I went drawing on a Sunday afternoon with Butch Belair, Danny Gregory, Jack Gregory and was even joined by Reid Paley. We went to a cool joint on the west side of Manhattan called the Frying Pan. It's a pier that is really a giant outdoor bar and grill. There's a boat that is a club and real boats docked there too. An ideal place to draw because you can get cold beers in an instant. One of the boats is a fireboat called the John J Harvey. There was no way I could really draw the boat from my angle. I had to cheat and distort the boat like crazy to make this drawing work. Somehow I did it.

500

First off, this is my 500th blog post. A lot of energy goes into coming up with all that nonsense I write about. Butch Belair and I went to the High Line in Manhattan to draw. There was old abandoned elevated train tracks on the westside. It looked like a highway in the sky. Someone had the bright idea to make it into a park. It's quite stunning. Butch and I sat on these big rows of benches that lead down to an overpass above 10th avenue. They cut big holes and put in glass so people can watch the cars and pedestrians go by. It's very cool. We were sitting just below the walkway. As you can imagine, once our drawings started to take shape, hundreds of people would look down over our shoulders to see what we were up to. We had to draw under constant scrutiny. At one point there was a large group standing two feet above our heads. One really loud lady was commenting to the group about my sketching. She said and I quote. "Look at how he's drawing. He draws EXACTLY like me, with a pen on paper." The sun was beating down on our necks. Got me a nice farmer tan. We had over picture taken by tons of tourists. If only they knew the drawing was for my 500th post. The lady probably has a blog EXACTLY like mine too.

Bridges, near Liège.

Butch Belair, on Flickr, gave me the desire to draw some metallic bridges...

Kane Draws Red Hook

Another goofy video. This time I have a new animated opening. Butch Belair created it and the music and sound design was done by Massive Music in New York City. The firehouse at the end is Ladder 131 in Red Hook. Five firefighters died from there on September 11th.

Tommy Kane Draws Brooklyn

Tommy Kane Draws Brooklyn from Tommy Kane on Vimeo.

Last weekend it was 90 degrees in Manhattan. It finally gave me a chance to go out drawing. I went with photographer Butch Belair. I've been trying to make little movies of me drawing also. It may not seem like it but it is a lot of work trying to draw and film myself at the same time. The music I did on garage band.

Dancin In The Dark

One very rainy sunday afternoon I went drawing with the great Butch Belair. We went to a little bar near me in Brooklyn. After getting a beer each and sitting down we began to draw. A few moments later something bad happened. It got completely dark out. The bar was dark too and suddenly we couldn't see a thing. I'm talking completely blind. Butch and I are as seasoned as it gets when it comes to this urban drawing business but there we were foiled by a rookie mistake. Neither of us said a word. We both preceded to finish our drawings in complete darkness. I didn't see the finished painting until the next day when I looked at it under a light. It doesn't look like one of my usual drawings but under the circumstances of being blindfolded it came out pretty good.