Over the summer I bought a 'graphite sketch set'. I bought it at the same time I bought the colored pencils which I used to draw my Fenway Park picture, and the sketchbook in which I drew it.

I was looking for something to take my mind off work, and I thought art might be that something.

Well, I didn't draw Fenway until the fall, and I didn't get around to using the pencils until now. So that didn't quite work out.

But I knew for a long time what I was going to try to draw with the pencil set - the Brooklyn Bridge…and that's part of why I took the pictures of the bridge I did back in October.

I used this picture - the one I felt was most centered and best captured the essence of the Brooklyn Bridge:

(I hope I set this so that if you click these images you'll be able to see the larger images.)

I'm no artist, so I didn't quite know what to do with the pencils, so I followed the instructions on the back of the box. It said to darken with the '6B' pencil, and then use the corner of the eraser to erase certain parts. So I essentially colored a big rectangle, then erased out the archways, and I tried to capture the somewhat overcast skies with the eraser too. Here's what I ended up with:

I think I did OK. I think, if you didn't know what I was drawing, you'd probably be able to identify the Brooklyn Bridge. And I think I did OK with perspective, like the swooping ropes and stuff. (It's been a while since I read the book. I forget what you call those things. Tressles?)

Drawing the bridge turned into a family activity - I had barely started before my 7-year-old and then my 5-year-old were doing their own Brooklyn Bridge drawings, based on mine. I like looking at the developmental spread of the 3 final products:

I'm also pretty proud of how theirs turned out.