House with Snow

Hopefully this will be the last opportunity I have to sketch snow until the winter. LOL This was sketched LAST Monday. We had about 1 1/2 inches of very wet snow. It stuck on all the grass and trees and looked beautiful. I had a meeting in the morning and by the time I got out of the meeting the sun was out and most of the snow had already melted. I did find a spot to sit and sketch were there were still clumps of snow.

Jewish Museum Sketches and Museums Along Central Park

The sketches I posted yesterday were from my travels to and from the city last week. Here are the sketches I did. The NYC Urban Sketchers met at the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side. This was my first visit to this museum. On the second floor there was an exhibit of the fashions of Isaac Mirahi. I picked my favorite in the collection. It wasn't easy to sketch there because I couldn't use a stool and the "walls" were fabric stretched on bars. There was nothing to lean on!

I wandered around the rest of the exhibits on the 3rd and 4th floors. Most of the objects were really small or really ornate and difficult to sketch. I did find a few pots, a menorah, and a scroll case.

We had lunch outside and it seemed like it was warm enough to sit out for a while, so a few other sketchers and I sat long Fifth Avenue and first sketched the Guggenheim...

and then the National Academy Museum (which I've never visited).

To the City and Back

Last Saturday I joined the NYC Urban Sketchers in the city. We weren't meeting until 11, but I wanted to go in early and sketch somewhere. I took the LIRR from Ronkonkoma and had a view of this man and his son/grandson.

This sketch I did in pen but I find that there is a bad vibration on the LIRR as we travel, and it makes it difficult to get smooth ink lines. It doesn't seem to matter so much with pencil.

Once I got to Penn Station I stopped for breakfast at Central Market. My friend, Pat, always eats there and there is a great view if you sit all the way in the back. I sketched the people in front and behind the counter.

This man came and sat down between me and the counter. I had a little more time so I sketched him on my iPad using Art Rage.

 I'll save the sketches from the day for tomorrow's post. Before I caught the train back home I stopped in Penn Station and had coffee. Of course I couldn't resist sketching the people.

 My final sketch of the day was a woman on the train.

Digital Sketches

This is my last Easter related sketch. I bought an Easter lily and used ArtRage for this. I tried using just the watercolor part of the program for the petals but I didn't like the effect I was getting. As a watercolorist it just wasn't what I wanted, so I combined some of the other parts of the program for shading.

This had been done a while ago while I was out on the north fork of Long Island. There are still a few old barns around. I know some of the ones that are built partly into the ground were potato barns.  This one is a bit higher than some I've seen, so I'm not sure what it was used for. Long Island was famous for a long time for their potatoes. Now so much of the farmland has been developed. This particular barn and a larger one is on the property of a real estate office.

Easter Fun

On Saturday I headed over to Bellport to sketch the local annual Easter Bonnet and Crazy Hat Parade. Festivities started at the firehouse, moved down South Country Road and around the corner to the gazebo. I got there early and sketched some of the kids and adults waiting for things to start. This wasn't the official Easter Bunny for the parade...he's a local, harmless character who apparently likes to take part in most town events.

The event moved on led by an old firetruck.

The Easter Bunny then sat in the gazebo and kids came up to have photos taken and each of them got an Easter egg. I stood outside the gazebo railing to sketch the bunny event.

My friend was there taking photos for the local paper and she snapped this photo of me sketching.

Photo by Krystle L DiNicola

Happy Easter

This was sketched up on the north fork of Long Island. I had planned on having it be my Easter card, but I never got it to the printer so it was never sent out. I'm emailing it instead. 

Wishing you a blessed Easter filled with joy!

Port Jeff Boat

I was up in Port Jefferson the other day to view an art exhibit that I have two paintings in. Of course I brought along my sketching supplies. I wanted to sketch this red tugboat that is there, but due to construction I couldn't find a spot with a view of it. So I looked for a substitute and this was it.