Cathedral of St. John the Divine

Last Saturday I met up with the NYC Urban Sketchers for the day. Uptown around 111 St and Amsterdam Ave is the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine. It is part of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. Construction was started in 1854 but parts of the Cathedral seem to always be under construction. It spans several blocks and is beautiful inside and out.

One of the best things about painting or sketching in the Cathedral is the atmosphere. In addition to the beautiful columns, altars, and stained glass, on weekends there is are choirs who perform almost all day long. Most of the performances are done by choirs visiting from outside NYC, and they sing with such angelic voices.

I did one sketch looking toward the main altar while a group was performing. This was done across a double spread in a moleskein journal.

For this sketch I sat behind the altar facing the stained glass over the front door of the Cathedral. This choir was in gowns and tuxes. You will notice some splashes of ink on the bottom of the sketch. I went to put the cap on my brush pen and for some reason ink splattered all over the page and all over my sweater. I'm very thankful that the ink was water-soluble and actually came out of the sweater.

We sketched until about 2:00 and then left to go to our afternoon sketching location.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 27 - Clouds Over the Beach Grasses

I am close to the end of Leslie's challenge. Check out the other artwork here:

http://lesliesaeta.blogspot.com You can vote for your favorites on Sea Dean's blog here:

http://paintamasterpiece.blogspot.com

This was done en plein air yesterday before I painted the waves that I posted yesterday. The location was Smith Point State Park and this is 5 x 7.

Clouds Over the Beach Grasses by Joan Tavolott

Today NY is at the end of our blizzard which has so far dumped somewhere around 15 inches of snow in my area.  It is hard to tell exactly how deep it is from my doorway since it is too deep for me to walk out without putting on my boots. I measured ouside my garage door and the deepest drift I could reach was 19 inches and light snow is still falling. Here are a few photos. I will go out later and take some more.