Fort Greene Brooklyn

 The NYC Urban Sketchers headed to the Fort Greene area of Brooklyn, home to the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Barclay Center recently. The area has really changed since I was there last (about 12 years ago.) We met at a small plaza on Lafayette Street. Directly across was Fancy Free, a Brooklyn Pub which has an incredible crowd of people on line outside. At 10 AM the line went all the way down the block. Why? To begin with they were displaying the trophy for the Premier Soccer League and visitors could go inside and take photos with it. Then a crowd stayed and watched the Arsenal team (the local team) win the Premier League championship. Also inside at the time was the current NYC Mayor Mamdami as well as Spike Lee, the filmmaker and director who is from the neighborhood. 

Although I had no interest in the game I was up for the challenge of sketching Fancy Free and the huge crowd watching the game.

After lunch there was time for another sketch. I walked around the corner just past the pub and found this sign and apartment. I couldn't resist the sign and the details on the basement apartment. It is a fun neighborhood and I hope we go back another time.

Clouds Over the Trees

I used my sketchbook from Venice for this painting. You can see some of the markings that the watercolor ground didn't cover well.  It is strange paper, but I'm making the best of it. The clouds were near the Great South Bay in Islip. 

Poppies and Foxgloves from the Garden

 Every Spring I wait to hear my friend, Susan tell me that her poppies are in bloom. This time they had bloomed and it rained for several days. She told me they would only last a few more days at the most, so I scurried over to her garden and painted them.

Susan also had foxgloves that were in bloom, so I did a loose painting of them too.

Cloud Studies

I was down by the Great South Bay at Captree State Park and the sky was just wonderful...and constantly changing. I did a few small cloud studies. 

Lobster

 On summer holidays I try to arrange to have lobster on one of the days of the weekend...and sketch the creature if I have time. Luckily Shop Rite tends to have them on sale then, although this year they were the most expensive they've been yet. I guess it is partly due to the cost of gasoline lately. They were good!

 The irises are in bloom here right now. I stopped at Sayville Rotary Park to paint one of the irises. This was done in my sketchbook from Venice on the paper that was treated with the watercolor ground. Although it wasn't like painting on regular watercolor paper there was less bleeding this time.

Baked Fresh Pretzels

We had another drizzly day over the holiday weekend but the Sayville Farmers Market takes place every Saturday at the Grange in Sayville. There is an area where I can park behind a few of the tents and sketch from the car. This time I had a good view of Knot of this World, a vendor who sold fresh baked pretzels. There wasn't a big crowd out shopping in the rain, but he had quite a few shoppers while I sat there sketching. 

Like I said, it was a drizzly day. This was the view from my mobile studio. I had to use the wipers a few times.