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.

Little Vincent's Pizza

 This was painted in the sketchbook I bought in Venice which lets the paint and the ink bleed through the page. I tried seeing what would happen if I treated the paper with watercolor ground, which is supposed to make any surface suitable for watercolor. I only did 1 coat of the watercolor ground. Although it didn't bleed as badly as before the edges of the paint don't hold a crisp edge. I may try putting a second layer on the next few pages to see if that helps.

Anyway I stopped at Little Vincent's Pizza Restaurant in Lake Ronkonkoma. It was raining so I sat in my mobile studio to capture the view before I went in for a slice.

Quick Sketches for Creative Spark

Here are a few quick sketches done for the Creative Spark Scavenger Hunt recently. 

Something full, something empty, and a vegetable.

Shelving

Matt the Model

A few times a year the Patchogue Arts Council pays for a model for the Patchogue Sketch Club. The last few times we've had Hector model for us. This time we had a new (to us) model named Matt. He was a definite surprise and modeled as stripped down as you can get and still be PG. He has a really interesting face with a long curling mustache, a wild head of hair, and a solid body. I usually sketch small but found I had to sketch Matt the entire length of my paper. He posed in a variety of positions for different intervals. I hope he is invited back again.

Sayville Park Foliage

This is one of the locations down by the Great South Bay that I return to often. It is the beginning of the shaded area of the small park as you pass the little beach in Sayville. 

Beach Days Begin

 Sunday was a beautiful, warm day so I headed down to the little beach on the Great South Bay in Sayville. I thought about the sketches I had done in the workshop I took with my friend recently and did this sketch in a similar manner. The sketch itself was mostly a continuous line sketch.

Port Chester Sketch

 I was up in Port Chester for a memorial service for a good friend. Before I headed home I stopped to do a sketch in the area. It helped relax me after a day of journeying through special memories. This was done in the sketchbook that has the lousy watercolor paper. The color bleeds too much. I am hoping to remedy that. I bought a jar of "watercolor ground" which should add some sizing to the paper. I hope it helps.