There is a street in Sayville where several of the houses must have been built by the same developer/construction company because they all have similar roof features with the little piece in front. I like the style, but as you can tell I'm not an architect and don't have the wording for those features. lol I will probably go back and do another one of these houses.
There are quite a few restaurants in Sayville but not too many of them are near or overlooking the water. The Cull House on River and Terry Streets does have a partial view. I like the side view of the restaurant since there is usually a car or two to sketch. This was done the day before our snowstorm.
*Update: The grounds crew here came and shoveled out my front entrance early this morning and then plowed the wide driveway outside the garage door. Yay!! I can get out for my Covid test tomorrow that I need before my cataract surgery on Tuesday.
Since everyone knows the snowstorm was headed for the east coast I thought I would jump ahead with this post. The snow started right before I went to bed last night and right now (4pm) it seems to be finally winding down. Due to the snowfall and winds it was declared a blizzard. It is so hard to tell how much snow there actually was since the wind caused such drifts. I figure there is at least a foot and a half of snow. I had a lot of art activities to keep me busy indoors today including this sketch out my living room window that I just finished a little while ago.
You may wonder why I sketch in Sayville so often. The answer is easy...it is a friendly, welcoming town. When I drive through looking for a house to sketch there are so many homes that have front porches with seating areas where you can look out and see people passing by...and there are always people passing by.
Here is another one just like I described.
Lefty Lucy's posing schedule changed a bit. The plan was for her to pose on the first and third Tuesday of the month, but since she missed the third Tuesday she posed this week instead. After seeing the sketches I've done of her for nearly 2 full years, my friend, Ai from Thailand joined us this week. She was sketching at 7am her time before she went to work at her university where she teaches computer sciences. lol I don't know ir I would have the energy or the time to sketch before going to work, but it seems to have worked for Ai.
Here are my sketches from this week.
I saw the steeple of this church when I was passing through Islip so I drove around until I found a good view and that all-important parking space. Right now I can't remember the name of it but I looked as I was passing to go home. Then I checked the internet but no building like this popped up when I searched for the name. I'll have to do some investigating the next time I'm in that area.
On Saturday I joined the virtual sketchers from the NYC Urban Sketchers. Our hosts and guides brought us to Denali National Park in Alaska. Once again we were provided a website that was full of information and photo references for anything there that you can imagine sketching. I've never visited Alaska but this definitely made me want to go. I started with a photo reference of a landscape with these gorgeous flowers called fireweed in the foreground.
Some days I am lucky if I find anything that inspires a sketch...although I admit that doesn't happen very often. I was just about to give up and go home when I spied this house and portico. The portico added a little bit to the scene to make it work.
I love roaming around Sayville. It is one of those towns with a lot of character and the shops are mostly unique...not the usual cookie-cutter strip mall stores. Tiggy Winks makes me smile when I pass it. It is a dress boutique for children...communion dresses, flower girl dresses, christenings, and special occasions. Their dresses remind me of when I was in first grade in Catholic school and was selected to carry a pillow with a crown in the annual procession to crown the Virgin Mary at church. A girl from the 8th grade class did the crowning and she was dressed in a bridal gown. I was dressed in a gown that my aunt made for me. It was so special...until my mom cut it down to regular length. lol I've never been inside Tiggy Winks but the windows are always so special. I did this in my Strathmore Gray Toned Sketchbook using watercolors, ink, white ink and white pencil.
We've had some cold, windy days lately. I doesn't matter if you are at the ocean or the bay, that wind makes waves. This was sketched at Land's End by the jetty on the Great South Bay in Sayville while I was safe from in my mobile studio.
As a theme this week the Patchogue Sketch Club worked on "Junk Food." Now I do believe that junk food is a misnomer...there is nothing junky about it and I believe it is more important than the basic food groups...or maybe it is the basic food groups. Yes, I can easily do without hot dogs, and maybe fries, but NOT pizza. Anyway, Mark provided reference photos for us to work from on Zoom. I had a few reference photos of my own since if I'm having a hotdog it has to have sauerkraut and mustard...not chili like his reference had. And I wanted to sketch real NYC pizza not something gourmet with spinach. The greatest travesty is that he left out dessert completely so I snuck a donut onto my page. If this doesn't make you hungry nothing will. lol
As one of our sketchers, Maureen Dunn posted the other night, "When Sketch Club meets for dinner—we all leave hungry."
For the scavenger hunt on creativespark.art one of the items was something red. I like painting peppers so I did. This was done with inktense pencils.
One day last year I was riding around Hecksher State Park in East Islip, just exploring to see what was in the park. I came to a section of about 15 cottages along the water. They are all built with huge glass windows facing the bay. I've looked at photos of the insides and they are pretty nice. They have 1/2 bedrooms, a cooking area, a stall shower (I don't know if it is indoor or outdoor), and a sitting area. Every time I go past them the parking area is closed because it is off season or you need a pass. This time I decided to pull up to the chained gate and sit and sketch. At this time of the year there is nobody in this area of the park other than people driving by on their way to the park exit. Nobody bothered me. I'll have to go back and sketch another one.
We had one day last week (before this icy weather) where the temperature hit the mid 50s...that's beach weather in the winter. So I hopped in my mobile studio and went to Robert Moses State Park. As always there were a lot of people there, mostly taking walks to the lighthouse. I went to the dunes at the very end of the boardwalk to sketch. It was too windy to actually paint outside my mobile studio but I did enjoy getting out of the car when I was finished and enjoying the fresh air.
With the dreary, very cold weather we've been having there isn't much that seems exciting to sketch. I looked around for an interesting restaurant or shop to sketch and found this one in Ronkonkoma.
The NYC Urban Sketchers did a virtual meeting on Saturday. Our subject was Winter Festivals. We were provided with lots of references for festivals that were in the USA and all across the world. We could use those references, our own photos or anything else we could find. I selected a nocturnal reference for the Japanese Lantern Festival. I used my Stillman & Birn Nova Trio sketchbook for this. I thought the black paper would work out well with gouache. Of course this is not an urban sketch since it was done from a reference and not from life.
I like knowing about the background of the festivals so I looked on the internet. I like the legend below.
Lantern Festival, also called Yuan Xiao Festival, holiday celebrated in China and other Asian countries that honours deceased ancestors on the 15th day of the first month (Yuan) of the lunar calendar. The Lantern Festival aims to promote reconciliation, peace, and forgiveness. The holiday marks the first full moon of the new lunar year and the end of the Chinese New Year. During the festival, houses are festooned with colourful lanterns, often with riddles written on them; if the riddle is answered correctly, the solver earns a small gift.
A legend has it that the Jade Emperor's favorite crane was killed by some villagers. So, he decided to destroy the village with fire on the fifteenth day of the lunar year. The Jade Emperor's daughter felt very sad about this and warned the villagers about what was going to happen.
Then, a wise man advised the villagers to hang red lanterns to give the Jade Emperor the impression that the village was already on fire. The emperor was fooled and the village survived. This tradition of hanging red lanterns on the fifteenth day of the lunar year has continued until the present time.
When I pass St Marys Episcopal Church in Ronkonkoma I always smile. There is something about the way the church is decorated on the outside that is so unusual. I've never gone inside to see what that is like, but I have sketched the church before.
Hecksher State Park is a 1,657 acre on the Great South Bay in East Islip.Heckscher State Park is a 1,657-acre state park on the shore of the Great South Bay at East. It has beaches, boat ramps, picnic areas, walking trails, and even cabins to rent. I headed over there the other day because the sky finally wasn't the grey, dismal sky we've been seeing. One of the hunt items was a sky scape and there were finally some interesting clouds in the sky.
Like I said the other day, I like hydrangeas at any season. There is a spot in Sayville where I like to park along the side fence of the property. There are different flowers growing there and the dark fence sets them off nicely. This time there was even a little bit of snow from our last storm.
When I don't post my sketches in order of how they were done I tend to have a few that slip through the cracks. This was done a while back for a scavenger hunt item, but some how it never made it to the blog. Yes, it was a cold and windy day. These people were bundled up and I was safe and warm in my mobile studio in the parking area of Smith Point Beach.
I like the look of dried hydrangeas. Although they are not colorful like they are in the summer, they have a golden autumn glow to them. I found these in the back of the buildings that are part of the Idle Hour Artist's Colony in Oakdale.
On Saturday the NYC Urban Sketchers did a virtual trip to Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. Many, many years ago I toured the castle on a trip Jerry and I made along Rout1 along the coast of California. It was a great place to visit. Although I couldn't find my photos to use for an inspiration the group that organizes the virtual trips provided an entire webpage of information and photos.
Julia Morgan was the designer and architect of the estate. Part of the estate includes several guest cottages. I picked my favorite one to sketch. Looking at the outside this was my choice...although I would happily stay in any part of the estate. lol I love that he had so much artwork outside on the estate.
With the arrival of the snow I got a bit off course posting. This was done a little while back for the scavenger hunt on Creativespark.art.
I spent most of the day inside yesterday keeping warm. I really wanted to sketch the snow again so I checked the view from my garage...not bad but it was too cold to stand there (even inside) and sketch. So I got into my car, backed out of the garage, turned the ship around, parked in front of my garage, and sketched the view across the parking lot. Luckily I sketch pretty quickly because I didn't have my fingerless gloves on and the car wasn't running so my hands were cold.
Overnight into this morning we had our first significant snowfall. I think that here in Holbrook we got about 5-6 inches. It is always hard to tell. Although they had predicted a little more we lucked out. But it is very cold and what moisture remains on the roads will definitely turn to black ice by morning.
I decided I didn't need to be anywhere except home, so I pulled up the blinds in my living room and squashed myself between the window and sat on the edge of one of my end tables. If the Christmas tree wasn't up I could have sat on the other end table which has more room because the air conditioner isn't on that side. I used my sketch and wash pencil and a chocolate Derwent watercolor pencil to sketch out the scene. Then I went back in with watercolors and a bit more of the chocolate pencil.
I'm glad I sketched this when I did because about 2 hours later the wind had knocked most of the snow off the trees.
It seemed like each day the flowers for the "5 Days of Beautiful Blooms" got a little more complex. For day 4 we were given an image of a white lily. White flowers are really hard to draw. Sarah left hers just as a line drawing but I added a little bit of color. I used the Zentangle colored fountain pens for this and a touch of watercolors.
I continued the 5 Days of Beautiful Blooms with Karen Abend and Karen Abend and Sarah Simon. For day 2 Sarah presented an image of Cosmos. I did several of them. Again I worked with fountain pens from Zensations with colored ink that bleeds. I was careful to let it bleed in parts but jus outline in others.
The day 3 challenge was a rose. Roses are always a challenge to me but I sketched it carefully, counting the petals as Sarah suggested. (I still got lost in the flower. lol) I used a Uniball vision for the outline and then Derwent Aquatone watercolor sticks for the color. They didn't come out too vibrant on the paper I was using.
I am participating in a quick challenge of sketching 5 Days of Blooms with Karen Abend and Sarah Simon. Each day for the 5 days we are provided with an image of a particular flower. You can use that image or any image of that particular flower to do your sketch in any materials or any way you want. I got off to a slow start and only have 2 of the flowers done for the first 4 days. lol I will catch up. The first flower in a ranunculus. I used a fountain pen with waterproof ink and colored non-waterproof inks to do my sketch.
Our weather has been grey and dismal for several days. I've gone out to look for inspiration for a sketch but nothing looks good in this gloomy weather. So I set up a still life with my Christmas cookies and the tin they were in. In case you are curious they are (starting in the middle) a raspberry nut pinwheel, a walnut crescent, a Linzer cookie, a Hello Dolly and a chocolate chocolate chip.
When Lefty Lucy posed this past week she said she was doing os in the spirit of "Mother Time," instead of Father Time. Whatever she was representing it is always fun to sketch her. Sadly due to other things coming up on her schedule she will be cutting back to just posing for us twice a month instead of every week. We can't complain since she has been doing this for free for nearly 2 years since Covid started. I enjoy her sessions a lot. I do hope that most of the people participating tip her well.
Most of these are 10 minute sketches.
