Bryant Park Workshop and More

 Yesterday the NYC Urban Sketchers offered a workshop called "Discover Painting with Acrylic Inks." It was taught by the talented Missy Dunaway from Maine. Bryant Park in NYC was our location for the workshop. There were about 15 people in the group and we pulled together some tables and chairs from the assortment that are always in the park, to make a spot where Missy could do her demos and we could use as a location to paint. The workshop was great!

I've never worked with acrylic inks before. I purchased a basic set of 6 primary colors and a bottle of white. The closest comparison of how we worked was it was sort of like using gouache because you go from dark to light. There was no presketching and everything was done directly in acrylic inks.

Although Missy works with the acrylic inks on location I am not sure if I would be able to work with them without a table to hold the supplies I need. I am used to painting mostly on my lap and holding a small watercolor palette in my left hand. We worked mostly straight out of the bottles and I had 7 of them to balance somewhere. I can easily envision them spilling everywhere. But I will try this on my own a few times before I really pass judgement on this.

Here is the two page spread I did in my Stillman and Birn Beta Sketchbook during the workshop.

Here is what our main table looked like. Everyone had a lot of materials and needed a section of a table to work. I ended up sitting at a small table by myself so I could face the Bryant Park Fountain.

I tried a second piece with the acrylic inks after the workshop was over. A few of us stayed for the afternoon and sketched on our own. I had a hard time working on the figures. I should have used a smaller brush.

Bryant Park Part 1

The weather forecast was for sunny and hot in the city, so as soon as we got to Bryant Park, Suzala and I found the shadiest spot that had a good view of the Bryant Park Fountain. We pulled over a table and a few chairs and set up to sketch. Other NYC Urban Sketchers joined us and we ended up with a big crowd of sketchers under the shady trees. Typical of urban sketching something often happens to change your view. All of a sudden the water in the fountain stopped! Who expected that? It turned out that they were cleaning out the water at the base of the fountain. It took them about 20 minutes and then the water was turned back on.

Here I am working on my sketch surrounded by just a few of the other sketchers.

Since it was a comfortable, shady spot I just turned a little and did a sketch of the Bryant Park Cafe which was right across from us. Both of these sketches were done on 5 x 7 loose papers.