The Patchogue Sketch Club's theme on Wednesday was flowers. One of the members has a great garden and brought in an assortment of cuttings of flowers that were growing in her yard. She had several cuttings of her lilacs. Not only were they beautiful to paint but the fragrance was wonderful.
Fantastic Gardens in Patchogue always has a big display of plants and flowers at this time of year.
I was at the Bayard Cutting Arboretum in Oakdale last week. The array of colorful trees and bushes was just amazing. Everything was so vivid. I am enjoying the colors of spring so much! Hope you are too.
This week Lefty Lucy posed in a sheer, translucent robe. It was fun to try to depict the fabric as it covered both her skin and her lingerie. Here are her longer poses.
Riding around in West Sayville I came across a Chinese restaurant that looked like it would be fun to sketch. It might have good food too. I saw a number of people go in and pick up food.
On creativespark.art I am still participating in the Scavenger Hunts. In the current hunt hosted by Robin Susan we have to sketch 3 things that belong to the same group or category. Here are three vegetables (onion, Brussel sprout, and carrot) done directly in watercolors.
For some reason it feels like I'm coming across more cherry blossom trees this year than I can remember in the past. Right now they are finally losing their pink blossoms and turning green. It hasn't helped that our rainy weather and gusty winds for a few days seem to have speeded up that process too. This one was painted in Stony Brook before the wet weather arrived.
I've finally almost caught up on my posts. Sweet Tomato was painted last Sunday when I went to Oyster Bay with my friend, Suzala to paint. I've painted the building before but the people sitting on the bench in front called to me. They looked so content! This is 8 x 10 and it felt good to do something larger than the sketches I've been doing lately.
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Last Friday I joined a few friends for a trip into the city to go to the Winslow Homer exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We hit a lot of traffic going into the city so we got there late. We saw the wonderful Homer exhibit and stayed a while to see a few more things, but then left to go to a Japanese stationary store in Greenpoint, Brooklyn where we spent some time walking around. Our final stop was Takumen, a ramen restaurant in Long Island City. I had been there once before and we've been talking about going back for a long time. With the pandemic we hadn't been able to do that.
We were there for an early dinner so there were no people blocking my view over the counter and into the kitchen...so I knew I had a good view to sketch. I started sketching before dinner but finished the ink part of the sketch after dinner. I did the watercolor at home.
I like sketching in Port Jefferson. Many of the buildings are on hills or slopes, so they are different to sketch. This house was right in the middle of town where the shops are. Of course it was uphill.
This house is near the water in Patchogue by the ferry to Fire Island located at the Sandspit Marina.
Today my husband had his second eye surgery, this one to remove the blood in his eye that was preventing his sight out of his eye. The surgery went well with no complications or surprises. The eye is still bandaged so we won't know how successful it was until we see the doctor tomorrow. We were there for quite a while before the surgery started giving me time to sketch in the pre-op area. The nurse was in quite a few times to put drops into his eye.
This was sketched at Kings Park Bluff in Smithtown. There are two levels of parking, one at the bottom of the bluff and one at the top. I was parked at the bottom.
One day last week I took a drive out to the Hamptons and sketched along Dune Road. I love the views across the bay there.
Somehow I am behind in getting this posted. These were my Easter tulips that Jerry bought me. They were well on their way out, but I liked their shapes. I hope you do too.
Lefty Lucy posed this week. Here are a few 10 minute poses.
I love houses with porches where you can sit in the shade and watch the world go by.
Out on the north fork of Long Island there are many nurseries. The Glass Greenhouse is one that stands out. Sketching the structure was not easy. I need to go out and get some plants for my patio. This was done in my home-made concertina sketchbook.
If you want to drive to Fire Island your choices are limited. One way is to take the bridge from Smith Point across the Great South Bay to Smith Point Beach. It is one lane in each direction and does open at certain times for large boats with masts to pass through. You can also drive to Robert Moses State Park on the western end of Fire Island, but to get to any of the beach communities you have to take a ferry since there are no cars allowed other than at the two beaches mentioned.
I like when shrubs are surrounded by other foliage. This is one of the piney trees down by the bay in Sayville.
On Easter my niece gave us some lovely yellow peony tulips. The petals actually look like they belong to a peony. They are a little droopy, but I like that and they made a nice composition. This was done on Strathmore tan toned paper with gouache.
The Patchogue Sketch Club met on Wednesday at the library and our theme was fruit. I stopped at the grocery store to see if I could find something unusual but all I found was the regular fruit selection. I did specially buy an individual clementine with a stem attached. (I usually just buy a big bag.) Just my luck that by the time I got to the library the stem fell off. I spent a lot of time putting it back on just for the sketch. lol
Our trees are still in full bloom here with choices of pink or white blossoms. This house in Bellport even had what looked like rhodies in bloom too.
Jerry bought me pink tulips for Easter. They looked really pretty. Right now they are wide open and look like if I sneezed the petals would fall off. I need to do one last sketch of them. lol
Somehow this sketch got forgotten with the more recent work. I was out east and did this sketch in my concertina sketchbook reserved for sketches on the north fork of Long Island. There was forsythia and other yellow flowers in the grass.
Most years around Easter I buy either tulips or a lily plant. This year I bought a pot of pansies. I am keeping them inside because our temperatures have been so up and down. They were fun to sketch for a change. Somewhere in the flowers is one with a face. I'll have to turn that side around and sketch that too.
Yesterday my husband, Jerry had cataract surgery. I was allowed to go in with him before the surgery so while they were getting him set up and putting drops in his eyes, I sketched. I did the ink at the ambulatory center and added color when we got home. All went well with the surgery. In about 2 weeks he will have additional surgery on that eye to remove the blood from a blood vessel that burst in his eye. That is blocking his vision in that eye completely.
Somehow I missed the last session when Lefty Lucy modeled. She no longer poses every week...only twice a month. But I was able to catch her this week dressed in a lovely outfit. It was a fun night.
This was the final 20 minute pose.
I am slowly going through my local area and sketching the trees in bloom. It is hard to do the white/barely pink ones since it is so hard to define the blossoms. Here is the latest.
On Monday I took a workshop on creating Pysanky Eggs, the wonderfully-designed Ukraine eggs. The workshop was a fundraiser for Ukraine relief given by Martha Mikkelson at PAC MoCA LI. I had taken a class on making them many years ago but I thought this would be a good review. It was fun. One of the hardest things is blowing out the eggs without breaking them or making a hole that is too large to cover.
Here I am working on my egg. (Photo by my friend, Pat Sweeney.)
Then on Wednesday I went to visit my sister, Mickey in NJ and we worked on eggs together. I finished the one that I started in Martha's workshop and created another one.
