For six weeks, the Denver courtroom where Timothy McVeigh was tried, convicted, and sent to death for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was the home of CNN sketch artist and longtime Bolinas resident Walt Stewart.

And in the courtroom of Federal Judge Richard Matsch, life was tough if you were a sketch artist.

The judge squeezed the four network sketch artists - for CNN and Fox (Stewart worked for both), ABC, CBS and NBC - into the worst seats in his courtroom, Stewart said. There, a wall shielding the jury from a closed-circuit television camera blocked the view.

"I'm surprised my neck still works," said Stewart, who said he often had to strain to see witnesses, and sometimes could barely see McVeigh. "I wouldn't call [Matsch] a friend of the media," he said.

When his turn came to sit on one of the two worst seats, Stewart had to rely on the sketch of the artist next to him.

Stewart, 65, started his career sketching the trial of Jack Ruby, the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald, more than 30 years ago. In all he worked 25 years for NBC, working such celebrated trials as those of Patty Hearst, Angela Davis, the Rajneesh, and John DeLorean.

But even for a veteran like Stewart, the pace of the McVeigh trial was particularly taxing.

One day, the prosecution presented 27 witnesses, with the CNN reporter in the courtroom signaling Stewart which witnesses needed to be drawn for broadcast.

Usually, CNN needed between 10 to 12 sketches daily, and Stewart said he had to work at a dizzying speed.

His job is to capture telling moments - when people show emotion, or when witnesses recount a critical detail or reenact an event. Stewart said he would often freeze the moments in his memory so he could quickly reproduce them on his sketch book

A CNN runner would take the sketches to a waiting cameraman during courtroom breaks, as no one was allowed to enter or leave the room once the judge called court to order. The pictures could be aired on CNN within five minutes, Stewart said.

He recalled that during emotional moments of the trial, McVeigh would appear stoic, often touching his chin with one hand. At other times, Stewart said, McVeigh would talk, smile, and even laugh with his attorneys - an image of the defendant not seen by many outside the courtroom.

McVeigh also seemed interested in what the sketch artists were doing. One day, McVeigh waved at Stewart and pointed to his own shirt, which had a checked pattern. The shirt was a departure from one of the four, predictable, easy-to-sketch, solid-colored shirts that McVeigh wore in rotation - and McVeigh was grinning. Stewart recalled feeling "uneasy."

Stewart said there was nothing the defense could have done to get the defendant off. The evidence against McVeigh, while mostly circumstantial, was vast and convincing, Stewart said, adding that he himself has no doubts that McVeigh set the crude bomb that killed 168 people.

Stewart said he became friends with relatives of the victims, and sketched them time and time again, crying. Even the judge became wet-eyed during the testimony of a parent who had lost a child in the bombing.

While fascinating, Stewart said, the job isn't over. In three weeks, he will go back to Denver for McVeigh's appeal. Then CNN may send him to cover the trial of McVeigh's alleged co-conspirator, Terry Nichols.