Sketching at Sotheby's

The NYC Urban Sketchers recently met at Sotheby's on Madison Ave and 75th Street. This was the weekend group's first visit to their new location which was the old Whitney Museum. When we arrived we found out that only the second floor was open for sketching. Installations were being done on the third and fourth floors. The area that was open wasn't very large, but it had some interesting art. Luckily it was a fairly warm day (50°) so some of the sketchers headed outside to sketch the neighborhood...otherwise it would have been wall-to-wall sketchers.

I began with a sketch of my friend, Anna who was sketching the blue bust of Venus. As I finished sketching Anna more sketchers arrived, so my sketch expanded to include them too. On a pedestal near me on the right was a sculpture of ropes made of wool by Olga de Amaral called "Eslabon en Torsion." 

More and more sketchers came along. At the end of the day at show-and-tell there were 43 sketchers. Like I said, it would have been very crowded there if we were all inside. I moved my stool and was facing Marc Chagall's "Femme Centaure et Ane Vert Sur Fond Rouge." Of course there were a number of sketchers between the painting and my seat, so I included them.

Here are a few photos from the day.

Islip Beach & Frozen Bay

 I have a hard time resisting heading down to the beach. I ventured over to Islip Town Beach. There were a few other people around and I think they had been feeding the birds and that's the reason they were hanging around. There were lots of snow piles and part of the Great South Bay is still frozen there.

The docks still have ice around parts of them at the bay marinas and parks. I like the look of the water and the frozen areas.

Snowy Oakdale

 My challenge was to find different scenes that still have snow. This was down near a restaurant in Oakdale.

Snowy Scene Outside

I've sketched this view many times from my living room. It doesn't change much from snowstorm to snowstorm, but it is the only view I have on this side of the building. I used my Strathmore Tan Toned Sketchbook for this. In fact it is the last sketch in that notebook. We had about another inch of snow on top of what we already had, but the snow has started melting because it was a lot warmer..even though we were still having light snow. The snow on the railing was melting and slid off before I finished the painting.

Assorted Indoor Sketches

 I did a few sketches for Creative Spark recently.

A moka pot and almond biscotti.

A kitchen view.

Fruit, an egg, and a jar with water-soluble ink.

Snow Painting

When the roads seemed like they would be clear enough I took a ride down to Sayville figuring it was a good opportunity to paint snow from my mobile studio. The problem was finding a location where I had a nice view and could also park. Because of the amount of snow the town was still busy plowing the secondary roads so many of the small parking areas weren't touched yet. I did find a spot that was out of the way of local traffic and was a street wide enough for another car to pass me if necessary. Look how blue the sky was!

Inside in the Blizzard

The timing of the blizzard was perfect. I was inside because of the snow the previous day. Several friends had been taking part sketching quick portraits over Zoom. A woman (Chloe from Paris) organizes the event and people join in from all over the world. The models are other sketchers and each pose is limited to the length of the song being played, somewhere between 2 1/2- 5 minutes. Because the poses are so short you need to work in a medium that you can finish in that short amount of time. I used my Neocolors which worked out OK. 

Here is what the snow looked like out my opened garage door...lots of drifts.

I had Jerry take a photo of me in the morning standing in the snow on the patio wearing my "think summer" sweatshirt that my sister, Michelle had made for me many years ago. It is a bit big but it sends the right message. lol