Meet the correspondents: NEW YORK > Amanda Kavanagh

“I find myself waiting around a lot in this city; for subways, appointments, restaurant tables. Since I started carrying a sketchbook, the sweetest words to me are, “please have a seat and we’ll be with you shortly”. I jump at the chance to have a few guilt-free moments to draw.

I generally stick to architecture when I’m out sketching. I love finding those long-forgotten cornices and friezes high above the streets of Manhattan. The stuff you just don’t notice walking by. I love to capture run-down Brooklyn neighborhoods that are on the brink of gentrification: Coney Island, Red Hook and the Gowanus Canal. It’s all going to disappear in few years and I feel a need to document it.

I’m self conscious about drawing people at close range though, especially on the subway. But I think I’ve perfected my technique for avoiding eye-contact: keep your head down, draw up to the shoulders, and then if they start to catch on, stick a weasel-head on them.”

• Amanda’s blog: craftmonkeys.
• Amanda’s art on Flickr.