Every Person In New York

If you happen to be on the subway train and notice that a guy keeps looking your way while sketching, it's not because he's just another voyeuristic subway perv without the technological know-how to use a camera phone. He may be 25-year-old artist Jason Polan, who has made it his personal life mission to sketch the faces of each and every New Yorker--all 8 million of them in the five boroughs.

He admits that it's a tall order and that he may never finish the task (and, in my mind, think of all the other variables--are they tourists? What if you sketch the same person twice? This city is smaller than we think, as evidenced by how you ALWAYS run into someone you'd rather avoid.) He loves offbeat clothing or interesting poses, and likes to catch people while they're candid--he tries to be unobtrusive while sketching and says most people don't usually notice. That's up for you to judge if you ever come across him. Even so, it's a pretty cool and unique project, and one I can admire since my self-diagnosed ADD would kick in after the fifth sketch and I'd start drawing butterflies. Check out his new blog where he posts his sketches online as frequently as possible.