Elms Hotel Renovation Sketchcrawl

 The Elms Hotel’s had a lot of of owners over the years, even in my memory; the latest is doing MAJOR renovation, and we got to go tour the demolition phase for our sketchcrawl.  It was amazing, and the plan is to be open for business in April.  It’s pretty much down to bare stone and brick walls in a lot of areas, so I hope to have another tour when it’s a little farther along.

 

It was pretty cold in the big old stone building, only minimally heated if that, so we ended up in the sunny semi-circular library to sketch. Even there the sun only seemed to warm us if it actually was ON us. I added bits and pieces to the main drawing quickly…the window’s from the sub-basement, and the dumpster is one of many surrounding the building, filling with debris.

The history of the building’s pretty amazing, everything from Al Capone to Jack Dempsey to Harry Truman to the NY Giants, two devastating fires, and everything in between.   This “newest” Elms opened in 1912, so the renovation will include its 100th anniversary.  What a blowout!

Vicky and Joseph got a bit of sun…
This was the view I chose, though I wish I’d had more time in the catacombs!

 

The broad window ledges made a handy sketching table!
I was on the last two pages in this journal, so chose to add only a bit of color to the warm tan sheet.

All in all it was a terrific sketchcrawl, even if there WERE only four of us this time.  Thank you, Keith Winge and Bari Allen for letting us explore!

Ink and watercolor on tan paper, with just a bit of white Prismacolor pencil.

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