Happy Easter & Sketches from the Central Park Area

Happy Easter to those who are celebrating. 

Yesterday I sketched with the NYC Urban Sketchers.  Our destination was Salon 94 on 89th Street near Central Park. There was a bit of a mixup, and we were told we couldn't sketch in the gallery, although some of the sketchers weren't noticed and managed to sketch for a while. Since the weather seemed promising most of the sketchers headed up to 5th Ave and Central Park. Many of us sat outside of the park to sketch, some sketchers went into the park, and some sketchers went into the Metropolitan Museum. The view that the group I stayed with was 89th St and the Guggenheim Museum on 5th Avenue. I couldn't decide what I wanted to sketch, so I did some small sketches of what was in front of  me.

I started with a sketch of the Guggenheim on the left and then the streetlight, signs, and birds right in front of us. Then I sketched looking down 89th Street with the buildings, cars, and foliage that I could see.

My final sketch on the page was of some of the other sketchers sketching while sitting in front of the wall enclosing Central Park. I had a bit of lunch and then headed into Central Park. I didn't go far. The cherry blossoms had started to bloom so I sat in a spot where I was out of traffic but could see the blossoms. That is the painting I posted at the top of this page. 

At 3:00 we had our "show and tell." It was interesting to see what everyone had painted since so many of us had wandered to different locations. The Guggenheim Museum was a popular subject, but there were some other good locations and some sketches that had be done in Salon 94. People started to leave but a group of about 8 of us decided to go back into Central Park and do one more sketch. The spot we picked included a blooming cherry tree with the Guggenheim Museum behind it.

30 x 30 Direct Watercolor - Day 5 ++

Yesterday my friend and I went into the city to join the NYC Urban Sketchers at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, a new branch of the NYC Public Library system. It is located on 5th Ave and there is an outdoor terrace around two sides of the building. Knowing I needed to get my painting done for the 30 x 30 Direct Watercolor Challenge I chatted with the other sketchers a bit and then sat down to paint the view. 

Directly opposite my spot was this older building with beau arts ornamentation. Someone googled it and found out it is called the Knox Building. (When I got home I checked for more info and found out it was actually the Knox Hat Building, built in 1901 and their retail shops were on the first two floors and the company headquarters occupied the other floors. Today a modern building wraps around the historic building and the entire thing is an apartment building.) Here is my direct watercolor which is 5 x 7.

We probably had about 25-30 sketchers spread around the terrace, including one urban sketcher visiting from Penang, Malaysia. There is an active Urban Sketchers group there. On the terrace there were chairs and tables as well as a wall for us to sit on. I incorporated several of our members into my sketch done looking down 5th Avenue. On the right is the historic Lord & Taylor building which was one of the great places to shop for clothing in NYC. The building was purchased by Amazon in 2021.

I decided to sketch the Knox Building again with water-soluble brown ink. The ink kind of took over the architectural ornamentation in the sketch. I wanted to add a touch of the green patina but that just stirred up the ink even more. I ended up using permanent ink to redefine some of the lines. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the way the sketch turned out.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy the location so I think we will return there at some point in the future.

30 x 30 Direct Watercolor - Day 15 & Sketching on 10th Street

Today I had someone ask me how I can be working on such large paintings all the time (30 x 30), so I guess more people than I realize aren't aware that in this case the 30 x 30 stands for "30 paintings in 30 days" not the size of the paintings.
#30x30directwatercolor #directwatercolor2019

Today's NYC Urban Sketching location was 10th Street between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue, a street of many lovely brownstone apartments. I started with the one at 27 10th Street. The homeowner came out and looked at it when I was just starting and did get to see it finished when he returned. 

After lunch I came back to reality and did my Day 15 30 x 30 painting. Alan was sitting in front of me working on his sketch. I liked the touches of the brick building as well as the typical things seen on the NYC street like the dumpster and parked cars. lol I joked later that I painted Alan from behind so that I didn't have to do two portraits of Van Gogh. Alan was waring artist socks with portraits of Van Gogh on the front.

I had a little bit of time before we were meeting for show and tell, so I sketched another view along 10th Street. This was done directly in ink and then I added the watercolor.

We had a pretty good group. Here are some of us in a group photo taken after lunch.

For our "show and tell" we went to Washington Square Park which was a few blocks away. We had enough room to share our work. So nice person on the lawn offered to take the photo for us.

Inktober - Day 5 - On the Ferry & Parkslope

Today's Inktober sketch was done on the Cross Sound Ferry going from Orient Point to New London, CT this morning. The concession stand is always a busy place.
#inktober #inktober2017

This was done on Sunday in Parkslope Brooklyn with the small group of NYC Urban Sketchers that I spent the day with. It was my last sketch of the day done on 5th Avenue and Carrol St.

Inktober - Day 19 & Central Park I

Yesterday my plein air group was painting at a farm stand out in Wading River. My painting isn't quite finished so I will post that in the future. When I packed up for the day I grabbed by sketchbook to do my Inktober 19 sketch. One of my artist friends was still working at her easel so I sketched her.

#inktober #inktober2016

On Sunday 2 friends and I went into the city to Central Park to sketch. We started out at the Conservatory Garden, a formal garden up along 5th Ave and 105 St. It had a lot of pretty views.

Art Deco and Rockefeller Center

On Saturday my friend, Susan and I headed into Manhattan on the subway. There are always some models if the train isn't too crowded. The woman on the left got off at the first stop (the nerve of her) so I moved on to sketch the second woman.

This woman was directly across from me. She alternated between being half asleep with her head all the way back, looking straight ahead, or putting on makeup.

The NYC Urban Sketchers had planned a day at Rockefeller Center to sketch the art deco in the buildings, decorations, etc. But we got there and the Christmas tree was standing up behind the skating rink and the workmen were putting scaffolding around the tree so that it could be decorated. We just HAD to do a sketch of that! Now you may be thinking to yourself...this is just the start of November...but this tree is BIG and it takes an extremely long time to put all the lights on it. When you see it finally lit ( the lighting is on Dec 3) you will see what I mean. I still don't understand how they keep the tree from now until the beginning of January without it losing it's needles. When we had fresh Christmas trees as a kid the needles started falling off the tree as we were bringing it home. lol

I found a spot in the middle of the promenade that leads from 5th Avenue all the way to the skating rink. There were art deco designs over the doorway, but I was interested in sketching the workers who were planting the tall trees that would be decorated and will stand in the middle of all the lit angels that will also be put up. By this time I was starting to get cold. My body was warm enough in my down jacket, but my feet and hands were cold. I did have fingerless (and regular) gloves that helped my hands but I couldn't do anything about my feet.

Then I walked down 49th Street a half a block and sketched the NBC Studio marquis. It had some art deco elements too. Then it was time for lunch...and we were able to warm up indoors. Yay!!!

After lunch I sat on 5th Avenue right in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral facing across 5th Ave where  the bronze Atlas is supporting on his shoulders, not the earth, but a representation of the heavens (or so says the brochure about Rockefeller Center). This is the largest sculpture in the Center...he stands 15 feet tall on a 9 foot high pedestal. I happen to have worked in this building when I was in college and passed this statue just about every day.

Since it now gets dark so early we headed indoors to share our sketches with the other members before most of them headed home. A few of us hung out a bit longer at a local restaurant bar, but only Mark sketched there. It was a good day...but a bit too cold to be sitting around. lol

Painting in Manhattan

Yesterday my husband and I had tickets to see "Billy Elliot" in the city. We decided to go in early. Unfortunately it was cold and still drizzling when we got there so we stopped into St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Ave. We sat in a pew in The Lady Chapel while I painted this. There were a number of art students all over the church sketching in their sketchbooks. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought of St. Patricks for rainy day sketching. This is about 4 x 6.

From there we walked down Fifth Avenue to the New York Public Library. It had stopped raining and I wanted to paint outdoors. I sat outside the library and sketched the view of the corner of Fifth Ave and 42nd St. I had to finish it indoors because by 4:30 it was already dark and I couldn't see what I was doing on the paper. lol This is also about 4 x 6.