Buttnekkiddoodles

 
Off to the Heart of The Rust Belt, Cleveland, for to make videos. Awaiting my flight out from Chicago, I had plenty of time to draw a very settled in gent by the departure gate.

  

Also swung by the amazing Cuyahoga County Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument.
Drawn with fountain pen and Pitt Artist Pens on #stillmanandbirn sketchbook.

 
Took some pics of the crazy patterns and calligraphy the repair crews made by drizzling hot tar on the cracks in the street. Presumably to seal damage from snow plows and to prevent further damage after water freezes and expands in the cracks. I called this Cleveland Calligraphy and Hot Tar Script.

 

View of the Cuyahoga River from the east bank very near the river’s mouth into Lake Erie and just down from Collision Bend, a 90 degree turn that has been a major challenge to barge traffic. Once a warehouse/industrial neighbor of Cleveland ‘s downtown, the area know as The Flats has been transitioning over the last forty years to an residential/dining/entertainment area. The city’s potential to make this part of a vibrant city core that combines business, residential, sports complexes, dinning, transportation hub, shopping, grocery is a work in progress. As a fan of Rust Belt cities, I’m pulling for this tenacious population to hang in there. After all, the Rust Belt Of North America is situated among one of the planets largest and most vital resources…….fresh water.

As Cleveland emerged as a major manufacturing center, the river became heavily affected by industrial pollution, so much so that it “caught fire” at least 13 times, most famously on June 22, 1969, helping to spur the American environmental movement.[10][11] Since then, the river has been extensively cleaned up through the efforts of Cleveland’s city government and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA).[12] In 2019, the American Rivers conservation association named the Cuyahoga “River of the Year” in honor of “50 years of environmental resurgence.”
Drawn during lunch at the Brewery pub Collision Bend with Pitt Artist Pens on watercolor paper.

When back to Cleveland for a bit more than 24 hours. Much to short of a visit, intended to get to the Garfield Mausoleum but that’ll have to be on the next trip. Did make it to Cleveland’s Steel Yards, where the steel giant Arcelor Mittal still has a mill crank in’ away.

  

The drawing above is Think Media’s cameraman Kevin, in the backseat of an SUV with head cranked most uncomfortably against the ceiling in order to film me as I draw him.

all drawn with Faber-Castwll Pitt Artist Pens.