When Jack Ryan’s new art exhibit opens at the West Tisbury Library next week, it will be the artist’s first show in more than two years. Though he was busy during the pandemic with his day job at the West Tisbury post office, Mr. Ryan has also been working hard in the evenings at his art table at home. More than 30 drawings will be shown, some created recently and some dating back to 2013.

The opening reception will be held at the library from 4 to 5:30 p.m. on Monday, March 7. The reception is free and open to the public, but masks are required inside the building. All the artwork is available for sale, with 20 per cent of profits donated to the library.

Mr. Ryan’s drawings embrace the Pointillist technique of stippling: using a pen to draw dots that create shapes and contrasts of shadow and light. The process is time consuming and requires painstaking focus and control. Each piece takes him approximately 50 hours to complete. The self-described perfectionist won’t complete a drawing until he feels it’s the best he has ever done.

Mr. Ryan was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. and he attended the legendary art school at Pratt Institute where he studied with architectural illustrators. His work has appeared in magazines and newspapers worldwide.

A common adage is for artists to work from what they know. That approach is true for Mr. Ryan, who makes the buildings, streets, waterways and skylines of New York city the subjects of his drawings. His wife Laura asks him to draw scenes of the Vineyard. But he just can’t break loose from depicting his home town. That, he says, “would be like trying to get Waylon Jennings to cover an ABBA song.”