30x30 Direct Watercolor #25 #26 #27 - Carl Schulz Park

 The destination for the NYC Urban Sketchers was Carl Schurz Park at 86th St and West End Avenue. The park had a bit of everything. I completed 3 direct watercolors there. One block away was a small, dead-end street called Henderson Place. It had homes that reminded me of Paris.

Back inside the park I found a tunnel under an overpass. You could see an area with flowers and a statue past the tunnel. From where I was sitting to sketch I couldn't see what it was a statue of, and later found out it was Peter Pan. (Who would have guessed?)

Then I moved to another shady spot where my friends, Anna & Jen were sketching. I did a third direct watercolor of them at work.

Carl Schurz Park

Today the NYC Urban Sketchers met at Gracie Mansion and Carl Schurz Park at 88th Street and East End Avenue. I took the subway into the city which ended up being quite a long trip (over 2 hrs) due to construction delays on the lines. I did get to do one sketch on the train ride in.

Our group of sketchers headed to see the views along the East River first. I sketched a view looking down the path with a few joggers and the river view. The park is really nicely landscaped and it was great to see that here in NYC the leaves are finally starting to appear on the trees.

We took a break for lunch, but that didn't stop our sketching. These men at the counter were interesting subjects.

Back at the park I sketched this view of a rocky area that kids were climbing on.

The only disappointment of the day was that we couldn't sketch Gracie Mansion, which is the official home of the mayor of NYC. The entire house is behind a big security fence that blocks the entire view. They do tours of the house, but not on Saturday. One of our members tried to convince the security guard to let us in, but there was no way we would be allowed in. 

So we moved on to the dog run. Of course because it was a dog run that's exactly what they did in the fenced in area. They were very hard to sketch. The owners stayed still and once in a while the dogs would come over to their owners...but mostly they just ran.

I also sketched the small lighthouse that was in the East River and the view of Queens across the water.

At the end of the day we did a "throw-down" of our sketchbooks. It is always fun to share our work, talk about our supplies and methods of sketching, and talk to the other sketchers. Here are a few of the sketches that were done today.

And a few close-ups.

That's a sketch of me on the left.

It was a great day!