Assorted Boats

Living here on Long Island we have a lot of beaches and marinas along the bay both on the south shore and the north shore. Sayville is the closest bay beach town near me. It isn't a spot I would go to swim, although it has a tiny beach. But it has a big town dock and the parking area overlooks a number of boats like this one that was trailered and sitting in the parking lot in front of the Wet Pants Sailing Association.

Bellport also has a tiny beach and dock area. We sketched there last Wednesday and for some reason there were about 8 boats sitting up on the beach and the dock area. Since I usually find sailboats and motor boats, it was fun to sketch this yellow catamaran for a change.

Cold Spring Harbor

For some reason I forgot to post this from a few weeks ago. I went with a friend to Cold Spring Harbor. She painted the view out into the harbor. I liked the view toward the road from the fishing dock looking at the bulkhead and the small boat.

Beach Road

I like sketching streets with all the wires and views to the distance. This was done from a park down by Sayville Beach by Foster Ave and River Road. Most of the houses here ended up being raised up after Hurricane Sandy.

Back To the Oyster Farm - Part 2

I decided I needed to capture a bit of the action going on at Thatcher Oyster Farm near Captree. Here are Chuck and one of his workers out in the bay bringing the oyster bags up from the bottom. I wouldn't want to have to lift them up.

On the dock itself the oysters are tumbled and sorted before the larger ones are ready to be iced and delivered to their customers.

Back By the Oyster Farm - Part 1

Last Saturday we were invited back to the Thatcher Oyster Farm area to paint and sketch. Since I had painted from the oyster dock the last time, a friend and I took a ride over to one of the inhabited islands. We walked around a bit. There were maybe 4/5 houses on this small island. They are used for the summer and aren't winterized so the season isn't too long. We had permission to sit on the dock by one of the houses. I painted this view of a boarded up building with the boat at the dock. We met a few of the residents who came over to chat, as well as a beautiful, friendly white lab who visits everyone.

Chuck came back and picked us up so we could join everyone else for lunch and cocktails. I did another view from the dock after lunch. In the distance is one of the bridges along the Robert Moses Causeway that goes to Fire Island.

By the Marina

I have a fondness for these rustic buildings with all the junk piled in front of them that I find at a lot of old marinas. This was at a marina along the river in Patchogue.

Short Beach

I had a few things to do north of me and when I finished I drove over to Short Beach in Smithtown. Usually I paint the view over the marshland, but this time I liked that I could see a few masts of the sailboats looking in this direction instead.

Madison's Niche

Last Wednesday evening the Patchogue Sketch Club met in Sayville. After meeting in Starbucks we all headed out to find a sketch location. We met at 6:00 but at this time of year that doesn't give us much time before it gets dark. My friend Cindy and I sat in front of Madison's Niche, a fairly new store that carries an assortment of gift items, clothing, and assorted merchandise. It was fun to see what we could sketch from the window display. Once the store closed for the evening the lighting was a little different but it was a bit easier to see some of the items.

Pelligrini Vineyards

I was out east the other day looking for a view from the vineyards. There are lots of them out there, but most of them are flat and have no exciting view. I found the Pellegrini Vineyards in Cutchogue which had a small hill so you could see the vines in the back going up. Of course the view was from the parking lot.

Chickens

When I was at the Bayard Cutting Arboretum in Oakdale I stopped to see the chickens. They are all of the same breed and have great colored feathers. While I was sitting there sketching I found out a few interesting things. Chickens love watermelon and cucumbers. Their caretakers brought out bags of them and the chickens were so excited and ate every morsel. Apparently they love the water in both. These were painted directly in watercolors.

Dahlia

I was at the Bayard Cutting Arboretum in Oakdale with my plein air group on Tuesday in the dahlia garden. There are so many beautiful blossoms it is hard to pick one to paint...but I did. This is the way I painted it...

but I may crop it to a square format and maybe darken some o the vegetation. Which do you prefer, the rectangular format or the square?

Here are a few photos I took in the garden.

Sayville Water View

Across from the Fire Island ferries in Sayville is a dock with a lot of boats, but if  you drive down nearly to the end there are only a few. I liked that as the bulkhead curved the pilings to tie up the boats were all lined up. 

Beach View

Sunday was a beautiful day here and I headed to Smith Point Beach thinking it would probably be one of the last few beach days where it was comfortable to sit there. It seems like quite a few other people had the same idea. These two people were seated very comfortably in front of me so I used them for my models.

Civil War Encampment

Every year at this time there is a local group that does a Civil War Reenactment at the Islip Grange Park in Sayville. I ignore the recreation of the battle (except for always jumping when the shots are fired for the battle) and instead I find something by the camp to sketch. This year there were tents set up and one of the soldiers was cooking something over the fire. Of course I started the sketch and he disappeared. By the time he reappeared I already had the bales of hay around the fire and his body actually should have been in front of the hay...but I'll pretend he must be kneeling behind that hay bale. lol I used artistic license and left out all the parked cars and telegraph wires that were in the scene.

Bracco's Bar

Last Friday I had plans to meet two of my friends for lunch in Freeport. I made sure to get there early enough so that I could look for a sketching spot and do a sketch before meeting them. I drove down Guy Lombardo Drive and this cute outdoor bar area was next to Bracco's Bar. It was a pretty windy day and a bit early for a bar crowd but I liked the Adirondack chairs and tiki huts set up outside in the sand. Luckily I finished just as one of my friends texted me to say she was at the hotel we picked for lunch.

From the Oyster Dock - Part 2

Ron and I were painting on the same side of the oyster dock so when I finished my first painting I sketched him at work.

We took a break for lunch. Each of us had brought along our lunch but Ruth, our host, also had crackers and cheese and a nice bottle of rose. It was great to have lunch with such a special view.

After lunch I stayed at one of the picnic tables and did the view from there. It was nice because the top level of the dock was elevated so you could see the water in the distance. The sky kept changing with some nice darker clouds.

Unfortunately the clouds got darker and before long it was drizzling. We packed up everything and Chuck took us back to the Captree dock. Ruth and Chuck have invited us back next weekend. Yay!!

From the Oyster Dock - Part 1

I love when things work out and you get to experience something different. One of our NYC Urban Sketching friends who also lives on Long Island invited a few of us on an adventure. Her husband is an oyster farmer and has oyster beds in the Great South Bay near the Robert Moses Causeway. He said that we could come and sketch either from the oyster dock where he and his men work or on one of the other small islands that have small cottages on them. This past Thursday was our day.

It turned out that the weather wasn't good and a few people cancelled, but a few of us were still willing to go out knowing it might rain. As Chuck said, the oyster dock is only about a 5 minute ride out into the bay and he could bring us back to the Captree boat dock at any time if the weather turned nasty. He drove 4 of us around the area so we could see what our painting/sketching options were. He also explained a bit about how oysters are farmed, which I knew nothing about. We all ended up staying on the oyster dock to work. It turned out to be a mostly overcast day at times, but the sun did come out once in a while. This was my view across to a small island that had a few cottages that were in use and a few that were abandoned and fairly derelict. In the background is the western end of Fire Island where I paint the lighthouse all the time.

Here are a few photos from our ride around the islands. You get a much different view when you are out on the water.

Seatuck

The Patchogue Sketch Club met at the Seatuck Environmental Center the other night. One of our members works there, so she kept it open for us in the evening. In addition to having a beautiful historic building, Seatuck works to protect wildlife and restore habitats across Long Island as well as expose people to the beauty and wonder of the natural world. I would have liked to sketch more but we meet at 6:30 and now it gets dark earlier, so our time is limited. I am hoping to get back there and sketch more views both outside and inside.

Garden Shed

My plein air group, PALS, was invited to a private garden in West Sayville to sketch this week. I loved all the roses around this garden shed so I made that my focus.

Bryant Park Carousel

After the workshop with Katie in Bryant Park was over, a few of us had lunch in the park and then continued sketching. I wanted to do a larger version of the carousel so my friend Mia and I went to the other side of the park to get a closer view. I tried not to add a lot of detail but I couldn't help myself. I wanted to sketch at least on child on an animal and it morphed into many animals. lol

Tiny Sketches: Big Impact

On Sunday the NYC Urban Sketchers had another of their 10 x 10 workshops, this time with Katie Woodward. Katie is a set designer, but recently has been doing very tiny sketches...some as small as postage stamps. She did several demonstrations beginning with a sketch of the front of the NY Public Library. If you would like to see some of Katie's work here is a link to her blog.

She gave us a few hints as to how she scales down her view to fit on her small surfaces as she did a demo sketch. Then we got to practice sketching the view. I was using paper that was about  3 x 5 inches. Katie says that as long as you focus on getting the elements that make your object recognizable, your sketch will be believable. Here we needed the columns and the arches which are a big part of the front of the library. (Sorry these are so light, but we were working in pencil and stopped at that point.)  

The group then moved into Bryant Park where we were going to sketch the back of the library.

Everyone wanted to know how she make the detail so small. Katie says that the secret is to use "visual noise," lots of dots, dashes and squiggles to give the illusion of more specific shapes. She did a demo of the carousel in the park with the trees and the building behind it. She did it as about a 2 x 3 vertical. She simplified a lot of the detail and then used a lot of visual noise, making the strongest contrast and the most detail around the center of interest in the sketch.

She asked us to sketch a section of the back of the library which has recognizable windows and lots of umbrellas. I liked the section where there were two layers of umbrellas and tables as well as the windows and a statue. I used a piece of watercolor paper that was about 3 x 5 inches.

 

I finished early so I also did a sketch of the carousel with the trees and building behind it. This one is 2 x 5 1/4 inches.

Meyer's Farmstand

On Saturday my friend, Suzala and I went to a farmstand not far from her house in Woodbury called Meyer's. I loved the bright red color and all the plants displayed outside.  When we were done we went inside and bought some of their fresh produce. I can attest to the fact that their corn was delicious.

Doesn't it look good?

Creepy Clown

On Wednesday night the Patchogue Sketch Club met at the Pat/Med Library. We were invited to display our sketches in the library's display case. I will post photos of that down below. Because we had to be at the library to fill the showcase we sketched in the library and the theme was "Dolls and Mannequins." My friend, Mariann brought in this sort of creepy old clown puppet. He was calling to be sketched. lol

Here is a photo of the display case with our sketchbooks as well as the bottom shelf where most of mine were. You can probably guess which ones are mine (the two on the right and the one on the left).

In the Garden

My plein air group met at a private garden in Sayville on Tuesday to paint. I was attracted to the purple flowers.

Beach People

Sorry I didn't get to post yesterday. My husband and I went out east to visit friends overnight. I was going to post after everyone went to sleep but couldn't remember the wifi password. lol

Now that the summer is over I have to catch up on my beach people. There are a few of them still around.