Governors Island - Part I

Yesterday the NYC Urban Sketchers went to Governors Island which is a 172 acre island in the heart of New York Harbor. It originally was a military base - home to the US Army and later to the Coast Guard. Now it is being renovated and is overseen by the National Park Service.

There is a free (Yes, FREE!) ferry from downtown NYC.  My friend, Susan, and I took the 10am ferry for the short ride over to the island. We were early enough to do a sketch from the inside of the terminal looking out. When we put away our sketching material a woman behind us asked if we were part of the  Urban Sketchers. She was too and this was the first time she was joining the group.

Here is the sketch I did of the inside of the ferry terminal.

The ride over took only a few minutes. I worked on finishing my sketch but Susan and Allison were busy chatting and sharing information about sketching and life.

We found a spot with good views of the city and started sketching.

Several other sketchers came over on the 11:00 ferry from Manhattan and the other ferry from Brooklyn. We had a total of 8 people participating this week.

I decided to do some small sketches of what I saw.

Bike riding is a big thing on Governors Island. You can bring your own bikes or rent them there. Someone parked their bike nearby and that was my next sketch.

There were solo bikers,

and groups biking together.

While I was sketching the other members of the group were busy too.

Here are Mark and Allison,

Brian and Susan,

and some of the other sketchers.

While we were in that location I sketched Lady Liberty

and the Staten Island Ferry.

Along the fence were some life preservers just in case.

There are still a number of sketches that I will post tomorrow in Part II.