My friend Ed Velandria has been sketching people on the F-train for a long time now. It’s his yoga, his meditation, his way of relaxing while riding the subway.

That time on the subway is his "in-between"; the limbo time between his busy life at home with two kids and a wife and his busy life running a web development company.

With his tablet and his pen, Ed gets to zone out and focus on the shapes, colors, textures, patterns expressions of people’s faces.

Not thinking, just drawing, the ride from Seventh Avenue in Brooklyn to Broadway Lafayette in SoHo just whizzes by.

He used to do it with pen and paper. Then he tried using his pocket P.C. Even off the subway, Ed draws incessantly wherever he is on scrap paper, a

napkin, a Post-It note. Now on the subway he uses a HP tablet called a TC1100 with a Wacom pen, which he bought off of a high school student on Craig’s List. The tablet has been discontinued and is only available on Craig’s List or maybe ebay.  The tablet is
touch-sensitive and capable of different kinds of strokes. He uses a paint program he bought for $20. called Art Rage.

At first, Ed was very low key about the pictures.  Just some drawings I did on the subway he might say. But overtime, it was obvious that he was quite serious about making these pictures — at least once a day. It’s a habit now, or more precisely, a practice — a ritual to capture the time.

Ed catches his subjects during their in-between time, too. Eyes down, reading, sleeping, iPod listening, they are either going to work or going home.

I love the titles of the sketches: Long Day, Not Really Listening, Goatee Guy, Red Hoody, Intense, Kind of a Mohawk:

It is life lived on the subway — day in, day out. The artist looking, noticing, sketching…honoring the faces before his eyes.

See more of Ed’s pictures on his Flickr website.