Oyster Bay - Part 1

The NYC Urban Sketchers met on Sunday this weekend because it was supposed to be very hot on Saturday and storms were forecast. I'm glad we changed the day because Sunday the weather was perfect for outdoor sketching in Oyster Bay. We have sketched in Oyster Bay several times before and it is a town on Long Island Sound with some old homes, a few lovely churches, a motorcycle shop that houses Billy Joel's motorcycle collection, several restaurants, and views of boats and water. It was another location that I could go to easily and know that I could handle the walking. 

My friend, Susan drove and we did a little tour of the town looking for sketching spots. For my first sketch I spotted this small yellow house right nearby our meeting spot. The house was in itself a very basic, sort of simple structure but had a wonderful, wild garden in front of it behind a fence. It was also on a side street and there were no cars parked in front. In fact I had a spot to sit directly across the street that was marked "no parking here to the corner." 

I sat down and a little while later my friend, Andrew came along and asked if I minded if he sat next to me. It was fine with me. The homeowner, who was a fairly elderly woman, came out a few times to work with the plants and flowers and must have noticed that Andrew and I were staring at her house...so she came over to see what we were doing. She was thrilled to see us painting it. Andrew is deaf so he wasn't able to hear what she said about how she works on the garden every year and how much it means to her. He showed her a card that said he had a hearing problem so she wouldn't think he was being rude and ignoring her. Andrew can read lips but I don't think he could understand much of what she was saying so I filled him in later. It was a nice location to sketch!