Queens Botanical Garden

On Earth Day the NYC Urban Sketchers celebrated and sketched at the Queens Botanical Garden in Flushing.  There were quite a few events going on in the garden related to Earth Day. Groups danced, taught about recycling, taught about composting, and gave away trees. 

I started out doing a large sketch of the trees and flowers that were in bloom. A few kids cooperated and hung out on the grass in front of me.

I knew that I couldn't capture everything in a large size so I did a page in my sketchbook with some small sketches of what was going on. Here is how I set up the page.

I started with a sketch of someone dressed as a bee. It turned out that this was Howard Wassinger, a beekeeper and owner of HnH Apiary in Queens. He and his wife had a table where they were teaching people about beekeeping and offering them a taste of the honey they get from their hives. At one point he yelled over to me that he was coming over to see what I was sketching and was surprised to see himself as my model. He was thrilled!

Next I moved on to the beehives that were nearby. These belong to the QBG.

I walked to the other end of the park and found a few sketchers at work. Breanna was sketching with us for the first time. She and her husband recently moved to the area from Montana...quite a change.

Helene' is French and now lives in NYC. She has been sketching with us for a few months now. She was so excited that I had sketched her.

As always our day ended with our "show and tell" where we share our sketches from the day. I always love to see what each person selects for their subject.