Gurney Journey

Here's a drawing of a belt-driven drill press, drawn in pencil and gray wash. Gray wash is watered-down ivory black watercolor, carried around in a little bottle and applied with a sable brush.

Belt drives were common before electric motors were small enough and powerful enough to attach to each piece of machinery. When it was originally set up—probably driven by a water mill—the operator could change the speed (and torque) by switching the belt over the smaller or larger pulleys in the upper left. Bevel gears at the top transfer the axis of rotation from horizontal to vertical.
Bonny Hartigan: "My dad had a woodworking business and when I was a child, most machines were belt driven with water power. It was so quiet compared with the electric motors that he had later. All you heard were the whirring and slapping of the belts. What a wonderful memory that is, thank you for reminding me."

DK Vosburgh: "The sad thing is that most of these old machines fell out of use when their babbitt-metal bearings wore out, and people had forgotten how to cast new ones. They worked fine, otherwise."

Ken Simpson: "When [I was] a young fellow working in hardware store we sold the flat belts and joiners, the 2” belt was sold to the local school to make hand straps to punish boys in fractions."

 

Lutheran church, Ancram, NY, pencil and gray wash, 9 x 12 in.

The gray wash is diluted ink that I carried around in a plastic jar. It works nicely for a quick shadow value, but it's light enough to allow the soft pencil lines to stand out.

 

This old tow truck is parked in front of Triebel's Garage in Red Hook, sketched in pencil and watercolor.

Frederick L. Griggs was known for his etchings of architecture, but he was a notable pencil sketcher too. Books

Jean-Leon Gerome 

(Link to YouTube) A young Nigerian boy named Waris Kareem has been creating a sensation with his large realist portrait drawings. It's refreshing to see how he has applied himself to his work and how he has been nourished by support from his family, community, and government.

How do you draw kids without them being self conscious?

Caernarfon Harbor, pencil, 7 x 8"

A graphite pencil is the medium of choice when I’m interested more in form than I am in light or color. If I was painting this scene, I would be thinking about warm versus cool colors, atmospheric perspective and reflected light. With pencil I can concentrate on the bones of the scene, the simple overlap of light and dark shapes. If there’s a light mast or railing, I’ve got to be sure to draw around it.