Jason NicholasCreator, The Inkspired Life · Sketchologist™ Sketch Boldly . Live Creatively.

NYC Skyline Sketch: Capturing the City's Heartbeat

8 Jun 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:41

In this brief monologue, artist Jason Nicholas stands in Domino Park, looking across the East River at Manhattan’s Midtown skyline, including the Empire State Building. He describes the view as “great” and explains his artistic practice of creating skyline sketches, which he likens to an electrocardiogram (EKG). He uses the metaphor of the EKG’s blips—up and down signals—to convey that his sketches capture the “heartbeats of the city,” suggesting that the rhythm of the skyline reflects the city’s vitality.

Chapters

Uh, this is a cityscape. So from Domino Park, this is one of the views. Really, really great, great views across the East River. You can see the, you know, Midtown skyline here, Empire State Building. My skyline sketches are— I'd like to think of them as like an EKG. Has anybody gone to get their heart tested, their EKGs, and you could see the little The thing that goes across the screen goes blip blip blip blip blip up and down. Hopefully it's going up and down, that means your heart's beating. Um, I like to think of the skyline sketches as heartbeats of the city.