Stephen Wiltshire AKA 'Living Camera' Sketches New York City

Stephen Wiltshire, aka 'Living Camera', is a 35-year old British artist with an amazing talent - He can draw detailed panoramic sketches of city skylines after observing them for very short periods of time.

The talented artist is currently in New York, sketching out a detailed, 18ft drawing of the City and its outskirt areas, which he committed to memory during a 20-minute helicopter ride.

Sponsored by the Pratt Institute and CBS television's 'Early Show', Mr. Wiltshire arrived in New York, earlier this week. After 'memorizing' every possible detail he could during his short helicopter ride, he got to work at Pratt's headquarters in Brooklyn, in front of a live audience and a live web camera, set up by the television station.

As always, the artist first sketched his entire layout in pencil, while listening to his favorite music. Then using graphic pens, he started to sketch out the major landscapes first, filling in the intricate details later.

Stephen, who hopes to complete the sketch of the beautiful city by the end of the week, is planning to capture the five boroughs of New York City, as well as, New Jersey, Ellis Island and The Statue of Liberty, in his 18ft-drawing.

In the four days since he began, he has sketched most of Manhattan, complete with the iconic Empire State and Chrysler buildings, the Hudson shoreline of New Jersey, The George Washington, Queens and Brooklyn bridges - And of course Lady Liberty!

New York is the last in the set of eight city panoramas that the artist has set out to sketch. The others include Rome, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dubai, Jerusalem, London and Tokyo, which at 52ft, is his longest drawing to date.

While Stephen is very famous today, his early life was not as encouraging. Diagnosed with Autism at the age of 3, he was unable to connect with the outside world and remained completely mute until the age of five.

His life changed after a kindergarten field trip, when he returned, and spoke hiis first words - 'paper' and 'pencil'. Once he was handed both, he set about creating a sketch of everything he had seen that day - his first step towards an amazing career. To read more about this fascinating man, check out his website at www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk.

sources:nydailynews.com,stephenwiltshire.co.uk,cbsnews.com, brooklynpaper.com