Crimson Clover

 The other day a friend was telling us about a field near her house in Brookhaven where the owner plants something different each year. This year he planted crimson clover and a big part of the field is just small red flowers. I remember passing it once before and stopping to paint it, but I can't remember what he had planted then. I ended up sitting in my mobile studio at the corner of my friend's block to paint. Between the deer ticks and the deer (never mind the wild peacocks) I figured that would be the safest way to paint.

Maritime Museum Dock

I hadn't been to the Maritime Museum in West Sayville for a while and when I got there I found that a big part of the dock was being replaced. I guess that anything by the water is affected by the salt, the water, the high tides and the winds. This was the only section that it seemed like they weren't working on. It will be interesting to see how the dock area looks when they are finished. 

 

Barely Recovered

 Lefty Lucy modeled for us on Tuesday night. She had been sick with covid since her last session with us a few weeks ago. She said covid itself wasn't bad (She had been vaccinated and boosted.) but has felt really tired ever since. She didn't look well...partly because she wasn't wearing makeup or a wig...but she had dark circles under her eyes. She was wearing her dino pjs. I can't imagine that carrying around that dino head for 2 hrs is easy. I hope she is feeling better.

Carnival Time

 This is the time of year that the carnivals start popping up around the area. This one was down the street from me at the Islip Grange. I parked myself so I could have a good view of the ticket booth, but the whole time I was sketching I was sitting next to a food booth. All I could smell was burgers and fries.

Meeting at CEED

On Sunday the South Bay Art Association had our general meeting. It is usually held on a Wednesday but we were invited to a meeting at the newly renovated Center for Environmental Education and Discovery at the historic Washington Lodge. One of the directors spoke to us about the history of the building and gave us a tour of the building and the 60 acre property. The goal of the center is connecting people with nature and connecting nature and art. I sketched Sally as she spoke to us and included two of our members who were sitting near me. This was done with water-soluble brown ink.

 

Allium and Irises

My friend, Susan invited me to come and sketch in her garden last week. She is always so good about sharing her flowers with me. Her allium and irises were in bloom.

Technical note: I'm going to have to adjust this photo. It is bothering me that the two tall irises are the same height. Sometimes you don't notice things while you are doing them.

 

Surf's Up

 When I was at Smith Point Beach sketching the other day a surfer happened to walk into my sketch.

Surf's up, everyone!

Service Area

 The other day I needed to have my car serviced and a recall repair done, so I headed over to Nissan 112 in Patchogue. I got a seat in a good spot with a view from the service area into the sales area. There was a lot there do draw.

The Farm

The Suffolk County Farm in Yaphank has a great view across the field. I even found a few animals in the fenced area. 

Hector

 This week the Patchogue Sketch Club had a live model to sketch. Hector was our model. He is great and comes so stylishly dressed. He also brings along accessories...hats, glasses, bags, so that each pose is slightly different. His stance may be different or he wears or adjusts his clothing different.

These were 2 minute poses.

5 minute poses

10 & 20 minute poses

20 minute pose on toned paper

20 minute pose

Construction Sites

 I'm not sure what was being constructed here in this spot overlooking Brown's River. Will have to go back and check their progress and see.

Here was another site where it didn't look like anything was being built. This was in Bayport.

Boatyard

 It seems like I can find some kind of boat every time I turn around. These were at the Silly Lily Fishing Station in East Moriches.

House by the Marina

 There is a small marina in Sayville where I often sketch the boats and the view of the water. This time I focused on one of the big houses facing the marina. If this was my house I would have made sure the design had huge windows to watch the sunrise each morning.

The NYBG - Part 2 The Azalea Garden

 The Azalea Garden at the New York Botanical Gardens is another great area for sketching. We took the tram to the area and walked back to this location we had seen in passing.

Show and Tell was starting at 3:00 so we raced from our location back over to the Conservancy where it was being held. Several people were nice enough to take photos of everyone. I think about 30 people were at the Show and Tell. It is always great to see what everyone else has sketched or painted during the day.

The NYBG: Part 1 - The Lilac Garden

 On Saturday the New York Botanical Garden held their Plein Air Invitational. Featured artists are invited to paint all over the 250+ acres of the garden. There are artist demos, music and dance performances, and guided tours. The NYC Urban Sketchers picked the NYBG for their sketch location and due to the fact that our organizer was doing an art project with the public in the lilac garden, so all our members who signed up ahead of time were allowed free admission (a $30 savings per person). I heard that 900 sketchers signed up to join in. I didn't see that many sketchers, but I was too busy to really notice.

After socializing a bit with friends we hadn't seen in a long time my friend, Suzala and I headed over to the lilac garden and picked our spot before it got too crowded. Yes, there were artists sketching everywhere! I focused on a view of the lilacs behind rocks with a distant hill behind them. Imagine sitting amid a garden full of lilac trees where you could smell them the whole time.

I stayed in the garden and did another sketch including another sketcher, Suzanne who was sitting on her chair on the rocks.

I had lunch in the lilac garden with a friend I hadn't seen since before the pandemic and it was so nice to catch up in person. After lunch I moved on to Part 2.

Lilacs

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. 

Garden Display

 Fantastic Gardens in Patchogue always has a big display of plants and flowers at this time of year.

Arboretum Path

 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.

Translucent Fabric

 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.

This was the 20 minute pose.

Fortune Cookies

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.

 

Three of a Kind

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.

I'm not sure which hunt this sketch was for but I sketched 3 art tools.

Pinks on the Corner

 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.

Sweet Tomato and Happy Mother's Day

 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.

Right behind us there was a market going on. I wouldn't call it a "farmer's market" because it didn't have any produce that I saw. It was more crafts and things like that. Right next to where I was sitting was a couple selling crocheted items...bears, purses, wreaths, pillows, etc. I sketched their booth. They weren't selling something that would make me pull out my wallet, but they did have some customers and made some sales.

Happy Mother's Day to those of you who are celebrating. Here is one of my favorite photos of my mom and me. It is very hard to find photos of myself solo with my mom. Dad took a lot of photos but they usually had a few of us in one photo...there was very little solo time with 5 of us kids. lol

Takumen Ramen

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.

The Homer exhibit had a lot of his wonderful watercolors. Here are a few.

 

Port Jeff House

 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.

House by the Water

This house is near the water in Patchogue by the ferry to Fire Island located at the Sandspit Marina.

 

Hospital Sketches

 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.

Once they took Jerry into surgery I went upstairs to have breakfast. These people were outside Panera which was one of the food choices at Stony Brook Hospital.

Kings Park Bluff View

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.