Tuesday with Lucy

 Lefty Lucy posed this week. Here are a few 10 minute poses.

And the final pose of the night....20 minutes.

House and Porch

I love houses with porches where you can sit in the shade and watch the world go by. 

Glass Greenhouse

 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.

The Bridge

 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. 

Mixed Foliage

I like when shrubs are surrounded by other foliage. This is one of the piney trees down by the bay in Sayville.

 

Yellow Tulips

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.

Fruit

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

 

Springtime

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. 

Pink Tulips

 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

Yellows in Nature

 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.

Pansies

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.

 

Pre-Surgery Sketches

 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.

Once they took Jerry into surgery I went out to sit in the waiting room. I was able to sketch a few people there.

Lucy Poses

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.

Below are two 10 minute poses.

 

Happy Easter

 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.

Pysanky Eggs

 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.

Here are my finished eggs.

Here is Mickey working on one of her eggs.

Here are a few she created.

I have another design drawn out on an egg and hope to work on it tonight or tomorrow.

Edward's Street House

Back in February I was contacted by someone who had seen my paintings on Facebook on the Sayville Artists Page. The woman was interested in the red house I had sketched which turned out to be her parent's house. The sketch was really tiny from what I remembered and I couldn't even find it. I told her that if she was interested I would do a painting of it. She wanted it as a gift for her parent's anniversary. It was going to be a surprise so I couldn't exactly sit there and paint it, especially since she wanted it in 11 x 14 size. That's too big for my mobile studio. So on a cold day I sat in my car and did a 5 x7 painting of it with snow like she wanted. Then I came home and sketched it out in the size she wanted. I used my sketch and several photos I took as reference. I emailed her the sketch to approve and showed her the small, new version. The painting has been done for a while, but the woman lives out of state. She asked if I could hold onto it until her sister returned to NY from wherever she was traveling. Her sister would pick it up and pay me. She also wanted the small version for herself. Anyway, her sister finally picked up the painting this morning...good timing since their parent's anniversary is April 20th.

Here is the 11 x 14 painting.

Here is the smaller 5x7 sketch.

Pink Tree

 The signs of spring are slowly showing up. I've been watching for the tiny pink and white buds on the trees. It seems once you see them they are in nearly full bloom overnight. I found this beautiful lonely pink tree on Bellport Lane in Bellport. Hopefully I will find more trees in bloom. 

360 Degree View

 Over in the Scavenger Hunt on Creativespark.art one of the items was the view in front of you. As a challenge we were asked to sketch what was in front of us, then turn 90 degrees and sketch that view, turn 90 degrees again, and finally sketch the last final 90 degree view. My friend, Jo Castillo did the challenge so if she could do it I could too. lol I went to Captree State Park which is on the bay side. The clouds on Saturday were a feast to sketch. It was windy so I sat inside my mobile studio to do all of these.

I did the sky in front of me to start.

Still seated in the car I turned to my left and sketched this car and the buildings that house the restaurant and the restrooms.

Next I did the view 90 degrees to my left...a truck and some foliage.

This view was behind me so I backed out of my parking space, turned the car around, and reparked but in reverse in the same spot.

Charleston

 On Saturday I joined the NYC Urban Sketchers on a virtual trip to Charleston, South Carolina. I've visited Charleston in real life and really enjoyed its southern charm, so I was happy to look through references and revisit some of the places I remembered. I picked a reference of one of the cobblestone alleys between the buildings. I really like the colors of some of the buildings.

I had a little time before we were going to share our work so I did a quick, small sketch of the live oak trees directly in watercolor.

Three Amigos

 This is actually one of the lessons from Sketchbook Revival given by Kris Keys called "Wildflower Floral Painting Workshop." She worked loosely on the yellow flower with watercolor pencil followed by liquid ink/watercolor. The second flower was done by wetting the paper first and then adding the watercolor. More paint was added when the area was dry. The third flower on the bottom was supposed to be done within a wet area but the color was dropped liquid from an eyedropper instead of using a brush. I had some bottles of Dr Ph Martin's liquid watercolors, but hadn't used them in eons and they were all dried out. So mine was done wet into wet with a brush. The bottles were tossed.

Daffodils at the Arboretum

The other day we had weather that was mild enough that I ventured out of my mobile studio to sketch at the Bayard Cutting Arboretum. I knew the daffodils were in bloom there so I headed over. I did need my jacket, scarf, hat, and gloves but it was so great to be out sketching! First I sketched the view across the great lawn.

Then I focused on doing daffodils that were closer to me.

Here's how the whole page looks.

 

Surprise Sketches

 The Patchogue Sketch Club met at the library this week to do some sketches...but our subjects were a surprise. Each sketcher put an item/items into a brown bag with materials to sketch with. You were only supposed to use the materials that were in the bag. 

The first bag I picked had a wooden statue of a bird. Inside the bag were assorted pens and a marker all in the brown family. Only one was water-soluble and it turned pink when you added water. It was a challenge to get the bird to look brown. Many layers later this was what I was able to achieve.

The second bag I selected contained a large yellow onion, a small round rock and a clam shell. But the sketching materials were a red, blue and green oil pastel...no yellow! I couldn't get the onion to look like an onion, but I gave it my best shot.

Forsythia in Bloom & Watercolor Warmup Patterns

 I have been on high alert watching for forsythia in bloom. I knew the forecast was for rain for a few days this week so I headed out on a dry day to an area where there is usually forsythia in bloom.

I did another lesson from Sketchbook Revival. This one was hosted by Faith Evans-Sills called Watercolor Warmups Gathering Color and Pattern inspiration. She had us find an advertisement or photo and work with patterns of colors found in what we selected. I used a Degas painting of dancers for my inspiration.

Across the Water & Zentangle

 While I was up at Cedar Beach I changed locations within the park and went down by the pier. I sat in my mobile studio looking at this scene while I had lunch.  I really wanted to do this but it looked like too much playing around to get the shrubbery on the cliff to look right. I took a chance and pulled out just my regular sketching pencil and I liked the result. I don't know if those big buildings are private homes, but considering I was in a rather wealthy area it is possible. The one on the left looks like it should be a hotel.

This morning I did another Sketchbook Revival session. This was with Melinda Barlow on the Art of Zentangle. I've tangled before but never with such floral designs. This was fun and is about 5 inches square.

Mount Sinai Waterview and Sketchbook School Street

I drove up to Cedar Beach in Mount Sinai on Saturday. Mount Sinai is on the north side of Long Island where there are bluffs along Long Island Sound. The landscape is a bit different than the south shore...still a lot of water but the land down here is pretty flat. There was a mound of sand by the water and beyond that was a sand bar and across the inlet some rather large, expensive houses.

I have been working on my "Collage the Street" from Karen Stamper's Sketchbook Revival lesson a little bit at a time. I think it is finally done.

 

Waterfront & 1-2-3 Cats

 I sat across from the ferries to Fire Island down by Brown's River Road and sketched.

I did another Sketchbook Revival lesson, this one with Este' Mac Leod. She had us doing 1-2-3 Let's Draw Cats. They must be the most popular animal...at least in these lessons. Each cat was drawn incorporating a number from 1-9 in the design. #3 and #8 had to be on their side. It was fun to try to figure out how to get the number in the design for the cat's face. Can you find the number in each face?

Boardwalk & Sketchbook Revival Royal Tern

Some of the water locations here have small boardwalks like this spot by the Sayville Boat Basin. The marina isn't open to boats because it is too early so there are no boats in the slips.

I have been watching some of the video lessons for Sketchbook Revival to catch up. The 2 weeks are now up but the videos remain available until April 18. I'll watch as many as I can and do a few more of the lessons. This morning I did a sketch of a Royal Tern in a workshop let by Shari Blaukopf who is an urban sketcher I have been following for years.