Modern Snack Bar

I did a second sketch for my concertina sketchbook while I was out on the north fork this weekend. 

The Modern Snack Bar in Aquebogue has been around since 1950 and this sign is an icon that people look for when driving along out there. I know I do. I sketched it once before but didn't have a good spot to sketch from and have wanted to go back and do it again. This time I sat at the end of a gas station/mini mart to get a good view. Whoever was working kept coming out to pump gas for the cars that pulled up and I guess he was wondering what I was doing. With the number of times I've passed this you would think I would be able to draw it in my sleep...but no. Even looking at it I started putting the color on with markers and realized I had done the entire arrow in black! Black marker isn't the easiest thing to cover up. When I got home I tried using red gouache to cover it but that didn't work. I ended up using red acrylic paint over the black. It isn't as bright of a red as it should be but I was happy that it worked at all because this sketch was on the back of the sketch from yesterday. I had already committed to sketching on the back side of the concertina. I guess I'm going to have to be a little more careful.

I was happy to see that even though the Modern Snack Bar hadn't yet opened for the season they keep their sign up to date with the current world situation.

 

Southold Charm & Collage

 I headed out on the north fork this weekend and added some sketches to my concertina sketchbook. This sketch filled the last segment on the front. There are some really nice houses with beautiful colors like this one in Southold.

I decided I'd never get to all the projects in Sketchbook Revival. My plan is to watch the videos and pick the ones that interest me. This lesson was by Tiffany Sharpe called "Watercolor Collage Fodder." I used a bit of stamped paper, a gelli print, tissue paper and watercolors.

Just Married

 As part of the "Sketch Ukraine" event with the NYC Urban Sketchers I wanted to do a sketch of some Ukraine people. When Valery Filimonov & Lesya Ivashchenko got married in the midst of what was going on in Ukraine I knew at some point I needed to sketch the event.

Love can't be stopped by war.

Ukraine Museum & Sketchbook Revival

 On Saturday the NYC Urban Sketchers showed their support and concern to the people of Ukraine through "Sketch Ukraine." We were honored to have two young women from the Ukraine speak to us about what they have been going through. One is still presently in the country and the other has left to go to safety with her family. A woman from the Ukraine Museum in NYC also joined us. My thoughts and prayers are with the people suffering and fighting for their homeland.

I sketched the National Museum of Ukrainian Architecture located in Kyiv. Since this was done from a reference photo this cannot be considered an urban sketch.

I have watched a lot of the lessons for Sketchbook Revival but haven't had much time to do the sketch activities. I finally worked on this mixed media collage from the lesson "Messy Recipes" with Caylee Grey.

Along the Water

 We have a lot of locations that have small rivers/streams that lead out into the Great South Bay. Most of the boats are docked along these waterways and many of the ferries that run over to Fire Island are located inland a bit on these waterways too. This was sketched from a boat launching area in Sayville.

Dunes at Smith Point & Sketchbook Revival Flowers

I am always drawn to the beach and love sketching the dunes. This was done looking toward the Park Ranger Station at Smith Point Beach. 

Joy Ting had us do mixed media flower studies for Sketchbook Revival. She suggested that if we are working with a floral collection it may help to focus on just part of the collection, so I cropped her photo reference and just worked on about 1/4 of the photo. She also had us do smaller sketches before doing a larger one to work out the placement and composition. I used pencil, watercolors, water-soluble inks, white ink, and oil pastels.

Sewing Supplies and Sketchbook Revival

The Patchogue Sketch Club met at the library this week for the first time in a long time. Our theme was Sewing Stuff & Haberdashery. I brought along all sorts of sewing supplies. One of the members brought along a vintage Singer sewing machine. It was too far down the table for me to sketch it.

The lesson I worked on yesterday for Sketchbook Revival was Miriam Schulman's art affirmations. The lesson involved harmony using only two colors of watercolors. I used quinacridone gold and paynes grey.

 

Bridge View & Sketchbook Revival

I was at a park on the Great South Bay in Islip the other day and had this view of the bridge going to Robert Moses State Park. 

I sketched a boulder for the Creative Spark scavenger hunt.

Carla Sonheim did a lesson for Sketchbook Revival on Stylized Zoom Portraits. We used credit cards to do background tones for the boxes and then drew the people in ink. Each box harmonizes with the other boxes in the group because each color had to be used in at least one place in each box. Although we weren't going for actual realistic portraits mine do resemble each person a bit.

Beach Fence & Sketchbook Revival Begins

I needed to do some sketching for the creativespark.art scavenger hunt that I am posting. One of the items was a fence. I found this one down at a small beach park in Islip.

I sketched a bench for "outdoor seating" while I was there and a few birds for "something with feathers."

I am also taking part in Karen Abend's Sketchbook Revival. It is the 5th year she has organized this project and it goes on for 2 weeks with 2 lessons by different instructors each day. I don't always do each lesson and definitely don't keep up and do them on the days they are posted.

The first lesson was by Courtney Cerruti who had us start with one color of watercolor and then mix it with as many colors as we could. Once the colors were dry we were challenged to form something with each color. I didn't do the other two parts of her lesson - color wheels and blind contours with watercolor added.

The second lesson was with Carla Sondheim doing Stylized Zoom Portraits using mixed media.

 

The Truck

 For me sketching trucks is a challenge with all those wheels. I always feel like my vehicles wouldn't be able to move very far with the tires I give them. lol 

The Mighty 5

Utah is famous for its wonderful landscapes and many of them can be found in "The Mighty 5" national parks there. On Saturday the NYC Urban Sketcher's virtual event took us there. When Jerry and I were driving cross-country we drove through Zion National Park on our way to the Grand Canyon. We didn't have much time to stop...just enough to take a few photos.

When the location was announced I dove right in to the reference photos and downloaded a few from each of the parks. Then it came time to pick one park but I couldn't decide. So I did all 5 of them. Of course these are small sketches...maybe about 4 x 5 inches. I blocked out 5 fairly equal boxes on a large piece of watercolor paper and started drawing. I sketched it all out with an orange micron pen and then started painting with watercolors. I added ink, oil pastels and anything I could grab to intensify the colors of the rocks.

Here is the page as it was composed.

 

Abandoned

Today  I went out sketching with my friend, Suzala. She often finds odd industrial areas where we can sketch scenes like this abandoned building. I googled the road (Spagnoli Rd) and found that this was the Old Bethpage Solid Waste Disposal Complex. The two smokestacks caught our eyes. It doesn't look like this building is still in use  and I don't know if there is anything else on the property that is still currently used. We sketched from a parking lot across the street.

Boat by the Dock

It rained this morning but cleared up enough for me to get out and sketch today. It was strange to not go out sketching for several days while we entertained friends from Texas. I really felt like I was missing something. lol I headed into West Sayville and found this boat moored at the dock by Kingston's Clam Bar. Since I do not know what most of the equipment is on these fishing boats or how the things are connected to each other I find I really have to just think about everything as a shape and draw it that way.

Beaver Dam Road View

 If you drive all the way down Beaver Dam Road in Brookhaven you reach the water with this view. At one time it was a rustic area with access to the water and fishing. A few years ago they built a small park-like area with a paved walkway. 

Still Life

 This was done for the current scavenger hunt going on at creativespark.art. The items were a flower, something edible, and something folded.

Viva La Vita

There is a very colorful restaurant in Oakdale called Viva La Vita. I loved all the lush plants in the dark blue pottery. I'll have to check it out inside some day.

 

Dingle Pub

 I did a second sketch for the NYC Urban Sketchers virtual event on Saturday. This time I picked a location that I'm sure would be celebrating St Patrick's Day in a big way...the Dingle Pub in Dingle, Ireland. It sits at the entrance to the beautiful Dingle Penninsula. When Jerry and I were in Ireland this was one of the towns we visited. Usually in the evening at least one of the pubs would have live music. I know we went to the Dingle Pub at least once. I have such good memories of that trip.

Irish Dancer

 In honor of St Patrick's Day which is celebrated this week, the NYC Urban Sketchers had St Patrick's Day and Ireland as their virtual event over the weekend. I started with a sketch of an Irish step dancer which was done from a combination of several photos online. I can almost hear the music!

Fishing Boat

 Before I started working on the 100 People challenge I had posted a sketch of the dunes at Tiana Beach in the Hamptons. I drove along Dune Road to the end by the Shinnecock Canal where there are a few restaurants and a commercial fishing dock. I sat and sketched one of the fishing boats with all the interesting equipment both on the boat and off the boat.

Cafe du Monde

With all the people sketches to post I am behind a little. Last Saturday the NYC Urban Sketchers did a virtual event for Mardi Gras and New Orleans. I thought back to when Jerry and I visited New Orleans (pre Katrina) and had such a wonderful time. We stayed in a quaint inn that didn't serve breakfast, so in the mornings I would throw on my clothes and run over to Cafe du Monde to pick up biegnets and coffee. I loved the biegnets so I decided to sketch Cafe du Monde as well as the tasty biegnets. Every time I look at this my mouth starts watering.

 

One Week 100 People - Day 5

My sketching day started back at the eye doctor's office because Jerry needed to see a retina specialist. While he was out for some tests I started sketching some of the equipment in the room making sure to leave space to put him into the sketch. He is sketch #82.

After we got home I went over to the Sachem Library to do some sketching. I guess I wasn't there at a busy time because there weren't a lot of people there...but I found some. Somewhere there are an additional 2 sketches. I wonder where they are.

Next I drove into Sayville and parked on Main Street. I sketched a few subjects that were hanging out in front of the barber shop.

A woman with two dogs was heading toward me. I sketched her shape and the basic position of the dogs. Then I quickly grabbed my phone and snapped a photo to finish this one at home.

The Bellport Dock had people coming and going. There were a few me doing surveying the house across from the parking lot. There were even a few kids playing on a strange-looking swing and a girl on a scooter.

My last sketch to reach #100 was of a Swezey fuel oil truck parked with the driver inside. He must have been on a break and was there long enough for me to sketch him and most of the truck.

Now I will be returning to my regular sketching. It was great to stretch myself and do so many people. The practice is really good to do.

 

One Week 100 People - Day 4

 I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to have much time to sketch in the morning. Jerry and I had back-to-back eye doctor appointments and I stayed in the room with him, so I only got 2 sketches done in the waiting room before we were called in.  We were there for a long time and then went out to lunch. Of course I didn't have a view of other people in the restaurant...oh well!

After I dropped Jerry off at home I went to our local library. I was able to get a few more sketches done there and my tally is now 81 sketches. I added watercolor when I got home.

One Week 100 People - Day 3

 I was in Patchogue to drop off paintings for a show, so I stopped at the public library to sketch some people. All of the women in this sketch and one of the men were part of a team of young nursing students who were offering free blood pressure tests to people passing through. I sketched them while they were still getting set up.

One Week 100 People - Day 2

 For my Day 2 sketches I decided to head to Sunken Meadow State Park to sketch at the boardwalk. When I try to sketch people walking it helps for there to be a good distance where they are walking toward me, so I have time to get their details down. This particular park has a few ramps that lead from the boardwalk to the parking area so I sat facing one of them because I knew a lot of people would pass in front of me and I would have a short opportunity to sketch them. I did this group from my mobile studio.

I walked up on the boardwalk and sat on one of the benches to do these sketches...and then I joined the walkers for a little walking exercise.

One Week 100 People - Day 1

 For the 6th year Marc Holmes and Liz Steel have challenged artists to sketch 100 people in the span of 1 week. For some reason their week only lasts for 5 days. I've done this challenge several times before and I always enjoy it. It pushes me to do something that I need to practice anyway. I am finally relaxing enough that I will venture into the mall, but I'm still wearing my mask.

For Day 1 I headed over to the Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove thinking that would be a great place to find a lot of people. Thinking ahead I knew I needed to find mall locations where people would be relatively still. First I headed to Barnes and Noble which is right outside the mall itself. I know there are small tables by the Starbucks Cafe and a window ledge by the magazines. (Yes, I've sketched there before.)

Next I headed to the Food Court. There were lots of subjects to sketch and I waited for people to sit down at a table which was an indication that they would be there for a while since they were eating. I completed 2 pages of sketches there.

On my way out of the mall I passed the Apple Store. There were charging stations right opposite the store and there were stools to sit on. They were just asking me to sit down and sketch weren't they? The Apple Store has captive models who stand for a long time checking out the iPhones and other merchandise.

I was able to complete 43 sketches in one day!!!