iSketch140 by Jorge Colombo

iSketch084 by Jorge Colombo

iSketch104 by Jorge Colombo

iSketch098 by Jorge Colombo

A Collection of iPhone Sketches by Jorge Colombo

Tuesday greetings, my friends! I'm feeling awfully upbeat today, in spite of Old Man Winter's stubborn persistence. We got word this morning that we've been nominated for a Webby Award — in the Art category — and I'm just tickled pink. As many of you are aware, I'm a web nerd from way back, and have been tracking the Webbys since their inception. I'm thrilled that we're nominated, and today's editions from the very talented and most charming Jorge Colombo are a perfect example of why I feel 20x200 is the site that will have the honor of adding one of these to its mantle.

iSketch140, iSketch084, iSketch104 and iSketch098 are four of my favorite pieces from Jorge's ingenious and delightful iPhone Sketches series. I've had the pleasure of chatting with Jorge at cocktail parties and openings on many different occasions over the years, but it was via the venerable Design Observer that I was tipped off to Jorge's most recent and widely lauded project. Jorge and I supplement cocktail party chatter with a steady stream of Facebook banter, so I contacted him there immediately after perusing the sketches to see if he'd be interested in doing editions with us. Which brings us all here together today.

Jorge makes his sketches using the most modern of media. As he writes in his statement, they're "drawn on location using an iPhone application called Brushes. No photo references, no tablets, no brushes to wash: just my finger on the tiny touch-screen. Don't even need a proper light: the drawing itself glows in a dark corner." Translated from screen to print, these little masterpieces are really wonderful. I was amazed and giddy for days with the proofs when they were delivered to me during my recent San Francisco sojourn. I kept them laid out on my countertop for the duration of my visit, lovely to behold and a persistent reminder of my beloved hometown.

As I said to Ms. Sara Distin over IM earlier today, Jorge's sketches remind me of a favorite book from my childhood, Snowy Day. Sara pointed out — and I agree — that Jorge's pieces have a "really ethereal-much-more-grown-up kind of glow about them" but what they have in common for me is the strong pull of how my memory of New York feels. As the city of Snowy Day maps to the city of my childhood, Jorge's sketches of Grand Central and the exterior of Katz's are the New York that gets drawn in my mind as I move through it. It's their broad strokes and imprecise shining lights, the sense that everything is moving — the traffic and the people, each one of us contributing to the shimmering shuffle of the city's pulse.

One of the things that I love about traveling is that the feeling of being a tourist remains with me for quite a while after returning home to New York. Accustomed to being disoriented, I don't quite snap back into habit right away; instead, I find myself looking up and around, scanning the skyline and plotting my paths more deliberately. It always makes me fall in love with the city a little more.

This most recent return marked the same pattern. On my first evening home, I was heading south, cutting through Cooper Square and looked up to see the Empire State Building aglow, shining in the earliest-of-evening light. Noticing it, it became fixed in my memory and I think it'll stay there for a while, reminding me of feeling at home and in love with where home is. The image dwelling there is no picture-perfect snapshot; there's no way I could explain it to you or draw it myself, I can tell you with absolute certainty that it looks a lot like one of Jorge's sketches.