Installment #20 of my dad's sketches (wow - 20!). These ones, like the ones found on the video, Tunes and on the video title Episode of Pretending #2, all come from a file I labeled as "figures". He did a lot of these kinds of sketches. Wasting The Wastelands can be found on my On Any Given Day CD.

If you have already read the text on another video of my dad’s sketches, I just want to let you know that the story below is the same as what you have already read.

My dad, Bert (Budd) Levine was an architect by trade, and he worked on many wonderful buildings during his career. He was also a wonderful sketch artist (and sometimes canvas artist). Most importantly, he was a super nice human being. People liked him. Born in 1925, he passed in 2009. After his passing, and my mom’s moving into a small apartment, his sketch books were put into a storage shed on my brother’s property along with a lot of other artwork. When the storage shed had to be moved, my brother, sister and I went through the shed. It was then that I was able to borrow his sketch books, which are now with my sister.

There are approximately 140 books, some with only a few pages used in them, and others with more than 100 sketches. The smallest book is 3 1/2 X 4 3/4 inches, and the largest book is 18 X 24 inches. Nine by twelve inches seems to have been his favorite size, as at least half the books are of that size. I’m not sure if that is because he preferred that size or if was just what was the easiest to find. I ended up photographing approximately 1,000 sketches over the time that I had the books, and that is probably only about 20% of what he drew.

Some of his sketches are done in pencil, others in pen. Some were done with water color pencils and others may be done with markers. Many are mixed media. When I grouped the images I made of his sketches, I grouped them by subject matter. In my mind, there were 22 distinct subjects covered by his sketches, but in more general terms, there are abstracts, portraits, scenics and buildings, with portraits being the largest grouping.

The first sketch that I remember while growing up was a geometric abstract that hung on our hallway wall. It appeared there in 1963, give or take a year. When we went through the shed, I found that drawing. It now hangs in my music room. Neither my brother or sister remembers that drawing hanging in the house. I thought that was the first sketch he had ever done, but while going through his books I found one that was started in the late 1940’s, while he was studying architecture in Chicago. It was a revelation to me. I also found many sketches done in the early 60’s, so I was wrong about the one in the hallway. He was still sketching a few weeks before he passed away. In fact, he had a sketch book with him almost everywhere he went: riding the bus to work, trips, meetings, sitting in cars, museums and sitting at home. It was his thing.

When you see some of these sketches, you might think that you are looking at paintings, and you might be correct, but in my mind, they are sketches, simple because I think that every one of these sketches was done in less than 30 minutes. Most were done in less than ten minutes. For example, I remember him sketching the Bodie Mill, with all its complicated angles, in a matter of minutes. It was done with water color pencils, and a monsoon storm was about to hit us. There are hundreds of drawings he did while in a moving vehicle. These had to be done quickly, as the scenery, traffic or people he was seeing were changing very rapidly. He was fast.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this video. There are (will be) many more of them as I have the time to put them out.