Sutton Street Parks

 On Saturday the NYC Urban Sketchers met at one of the wealthier areas of NYC by Sutton Place on the east side of Manhattan. Our destination was a series of small Sutton Place Parks starting at E 55 Street and moving north. The 59th Street Bridge (aka Queensboro Bridge) immortalized in Simon & Garfield's well-known song, "The 59th Street Bridge Song" or "Feeling Groovy," was our view.

My first sketch was done in direct watercolor from the view in the park at 55th Street. Like most bridges the structure is a bit overwhelming but I dove right in. The buildings are across the river on the Queens side of the bridge in Astoria.

We then moved on to another small Sutton Place Park on 57 St. The view of the bridge was very similar but the park itself was more interesting with streetlamps, planted areas, and buildings set against the view of the bridge. The string of parks are slowly being connected so that you can walk along a prominade from one little park to the next. Here I captured some of the park elements and another sketcher set in front of the bridge.

There were posters hanging up advertising a free performance of "Twelfth Night" by the Condensed Shakespeare Company in the park starting at 2:00 and as they were setting up a few of us decided we would sketch at the performance. There were two actors who switched back and forth between all of the roles in the play, and an accordionist for the music and a little singing. Since the characters didn't venture far from their mics it wasn't too difficult to capture them, so I did a sketch of each of them and then added the bridge as a backdrop to the performance. When the show was over I went over and shared the sketch with each of the performers, who all asked if they could take a photo of it. They loved that they had been sketched!

I'll post two Inktober sketches tomorrow so I don't fall too far behind.