Happy Easter & Sketches from the Central Park Area

Happy Easter to those who are celebrating. 

Yesterday I sketched with the NYC Urban Sketchers.  Our destination was Salon 94 on 89th Street near Central Park. There was a bit of a mixup, and we were told we couldn't sketch in the gallery, although some of the sketchers weren't noticed and managed to sketch for a while. Since the weather seemed promising most of the sketchers headed up to 5th Ave and Central Park. Many of us sat outside of the park to sketch, some sketchers went into the park, and some sketchers went into the Metropolitan Museum. The view that the group I stayed with was 89th St and the Guggenheim Museum on 5th Avenue. I couldn't decide what I wanted to sketch, so I did some small sketches of what was in front of  me.

I started with a sketch of the Guggenheim on the left and then the streetlight, signs, and birds right in front of us. Then I sketched looking down 89th Street with the buildings, cars, and foliage that I could see.

My final sketch on the page was of some of the other sketchers sketching while sitting in front of the wall enclosing Central Park. I had a bit of lunch and then headed into Central Park. I didn't go far. The cherry blossoms had started to bloom so I sat in a spot where I was out of traffic but could see the blossoms. That is the painting I posted at the top of this page. 

At 3:00 we had our "show and tell." It was interesting to see what everyone had painted since so many of us had wandered to different locations. The Guggenheim Museum was a popular subject, but there were some other good locations and some sketches that had be done in Salon 94. People started to leave but a group of about 8 of us decided to go back into Central Park and do one more sketch. The spot we picked included a blooming cherry tree with the Guggenheim Museum behind it.

Sitting Around

The Starbucks that used to be located in Sayville was replaced by the Coffee Bean House. I passed by recently and there were enough characters sitting around outside that I stopped for a sketch.

Last weekend when I met the sketchers in Central Park I had a few minutes to sketch my friend, Mel Barranco and another sketcher, John McArthur who has been visiting the east coast area and hails from Queensland, AU and Hong Kong. They were having a nice chat while I sketched them.

Burnett Fountain at the Conservancy Garden

Continuing my day of sketching with the NYC Urban Sketchers I moved to the English-style garden where the Burnett Fountain is located in a lily pond. It is a memorial to the children's book author Frances Hodgson Burnett, known for her novel The Secret Garden. The two figures, one a boy playing the flute and the other of a young girl holding a birdbath resemble the main characters in that book. It is a very popular spot. Everyone comes there for photos and a couple got engaged right in front of us while we were sketching.

 

Allium at the Conservancy Garden

The NYC Urban Sketchers recently met at the Conservancy Garden in Central Park. They are so tall and pretty they look like they are dancing.

Later in the day I did a tiny (3 x 4) sketch of them.

 

Metropolitan Museum of Art

On Saturday the NYC Urban Sketchers met at the Petrie Court of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This section of the museum has som beautiful sculptures and looks out to Central Park.

I didn't remember to write down the title of this sculpture but it caught my eye with the dark sculpture behind it and the windows looking out at the park.

Later in the afternoon I sketched "Perseus with the Head of Medusa." I loved that there was someone taking a photo so there was the contrast of the old with the new.

Gouache Workshop

 As I mentioned yesterday I took a gouache workshop this past weekend that was offered by the NYC Urban Sketchers. It was given by Maru Godes from Madrid and held near the model boat pond in Central Park. Originally a workshop was offered in the morning only but there were enough people interested so that she agreed to host an afternoon workshop too. That's the workshop I took. 

Maru paints in very bright, sometimes unusual colors.  She began the workshop having us use the gouache with assorted amounts of water to see how it covers the paper each way. Then we used assorted materials like colored pencils, graphite, and neocolors to texturize the dry gouache. Our next assignment was to use non-local colors and a dry material in a similar color combined together. Here I used gouache and colored pencil.

For the next sketch I used non-local color, some colored pencil, and neocolors. You can see that I was able to add the texture in a similar shade of colored pencil or neocolor. Lighter colors show well on top of darker gouache.

Our last piece was a larger painting combining gouache, the texture techniques, and the additional materials we had with us. In front of us was the model boat pond and a man making giant bubbles. At first I felt my painting was too similar to just watercolor, so I worked on it more. Maru kept telling us to "use less water."

Here it is when I stopped at first...very watercolor-like.

Then I used the gouache darker and thicker in areas. You can see some of the texture from the colored pencil and the neocolors I added. I stayed true to the local color.

 

One of the problems I had with the workshop was not anticipating that it would be very hard to sit on my painting chair and be able to juggle all the materials I needed. I should have sat so that I could reach the materials on the ground or brought a small table. It didn't work so well in my lap. I kept dropping things and couldn't reach a lot of what I wanted to use.

Maru is a really good teacher and I definitely enjoyed the class. 

Model Boat Pond

On Saturday I signed up to take a gouache workshop in Central Park. Suzala and I got there early so we could sketch before the workshop started. This was done directly with watercolor and is about 5 x 7.

View of the Mews

Just outside one of the gates of Central Park's Conservancy Garden there was this great view across the water to what I think was once a boathouse. Now it is a visitor information center.

Conservatory Garden Statue

On Saturday I went into the city to meet the NYC Urban Sketchers in Central Park at the Conservatory Garden at 5th Ave and 105 St. It is a beautiful and well-tended section of the park. We've sketched there before. This formal garden has an English, French, and Italian garden within it. This was painted in the English garden. I was surprised to see that the water lilies were still in bloom...I guess due to the unusually warm weather until recently. I loved the statue and tried to find the title of it but had no success.

Bubble Man

On Saturday I took a workshop from another urban sketcher at Columbus Circle. I haven't finished the piece of artwork from the workshop, so I will post that at another time. In the afternoon I met up with the rest of the NYC Urban Sketchers near the model boat basin in Central Park. Since I had been there over Labor Day Weekend, I focused on an entertaining scene of the bubble man busy at work. I'm lucky I can blow tiny bubbles. These huge ones always amaze me. He even blew bubbles inside bubbles.

Last week I had seen a post on the  Urban Sketchers Perth Facebook page by someone from Perth who was visiting NY and posted a photo from Brooklyn. I invited her to join our group if she was free on Saturday, telling her where the group would be but that I was taking a workshop in the morning but would be sketching with the group in the afternoon. I also said how I had enjoyed meeting some of the members of the Perth group when I was in Australia. So when I found the group in the afternoon I asked if anyone from Australia had met up with them. Jacqui had found them and sketched with them in the morning. She went off to sketch a bit away from the group in the afternoon but promised to come back for our "show and tell" at the end of the day. Here is Jacqui Masters sharing one of her sketches of a lamppost from Central Park. She was really sweet and so thankful that I had contacted her and let her know we would be sketching. 

We also had another visitor. Debo was in NYC from near Savannah, Georgia for a doctor's appointment for her husband. She has visited before but this was the first time I met her.

One of the nice things about the Urban Sketchers is meeting people from other places and having a common interest. You can meet great people that way!

Sunday in NYC

On Sunday I went into NYC with two other artist friends. We met at the Met Breuer which is a small museum that is part of the Metropolitan Museum. The exhibits here are more modern/contemporary than you would find at the Met itself. We viewed sketches that were in the exhibit Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele, and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection. It was a great exhibit and you could easily see the influence of each on the work of the other.

Then we went to the Neue Galleri where we had lunch and then saw another exhibit of the works of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. These included some nudes, portraits and landscapes. It was wonderful. This was one of the paintings on exhibit by Klimt and the detail and amount of gold and silver in this was just so impressive. I had only seen this in books and it just amazed me.

We had a little time to walk through a bit of Central Park and stop by the boat pond to do a quick sketch. I did the ink on location and started to add the color with watercolor pencils but we had to leave to head to the next part of our day.

Our final stop was the Flute Bar for a Dr. Sketchy session. I have posted some sketches from their events before. Basically they have what is a burlesque model that poses in several outfits. Our model for the afternoon was Tiger Bay who I believe was Miss Coney Island 2017. Several other NYC Urban Sketchers happened to be there too. Costumes, music, a model, contests and friends. What more could you want? Here are a few somewhat risqué sketches from yesterday afternoon. Quick poses and longer poses. Tiger Bay posed in one costume made of tiny pom-poms, one made of feathers, and a final one of leather.

We left here on a 7:40 am train and  got back at nearly 10:00 pm. It was a full day!

Inktober - Day 21 & Central Park Boat Basin

This sketch was done at Sunken Meadow State Park. This is a favorite rock of the birds there.

#inktober #inktober2016

This is the third sketch I did in Central Park last weekend. We sat right by the boat basin and the remote control boats were fun to watch.

Inktober - Day 20 & City Building

I can't believe Inktober is nearly 2/3 gone already. I did another sketch using my handy twig. This was done down by the beach in Sayville.

#inktober #inktober2016

 Below is another view I did from the Conservatory Garden looking out toward Fifth Ave. The building was just barely peeking out above the trees.

Inktober - Day 19 & Central Park I

Yesterday my plein air group was painting at a farm stand out in Wading River. My painting isn't quite finished so I will post that in the future. When I packed up for the day I grabbed by sketchbook to do my Inktober 19 sketch. One of my artist friends was still working at her easel so I sketched her.

#inktober #inktober2016

On Sunday 2 friends and I went into the city to Central Park to sketch. We started out at the Conservatory Garden, a formal garden up along 5th Ave and 105 St. It had a lot of pretty views.

Inktober Days 16 & 17

Somehow I missed posting yesterday's Inktober sketch, so I'll do two today.

This was sketched by the Sayville dock using a stick (really a chopstick that I had whittled to a point). I wanted to see if I got better results using the narrow tip than I had been getting with the original twig I was using. The jury is still out. lol

#inktober #inktober2016

This was sketched in the Conservancy Garden in Central Park and is part of a sculpture around a fountain there. I used my preppie pen with permanent ink as well as my Elegant Writed to get some bleeding for shading.

Bethesda Fountain

I don't usually go in and meet the NYC Urban Sketchers during the week, but my friend, Wendy (from Australia) and I wanted to sketch in Central Park, especially at Bethesda Fountain. It is a lively spot with beautiful scenery, lots of people, and usually music.

 Wendy and I selected the fountain for our first sketch. Here is my sketch.

Here are Wendy and Toi sketching.

Then I did a sketch of the staircase and some of the flowers in bloom.

Here are Wendy and I together by the fountain.

Wendy did some great sketches too. If you would like to see more of Wendy's work, here is a link: http://wendybarrettpainting.blogspot.com

Wendy has also written a book about her challenge to return to sketching and painting. I think most of you would enjoy reading it. The book is available on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Grabbing-Muse-Throat-Wendy-Barrett/dp/0994366000/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1463177376&sr=8-8&keywords=wendy+barrett

Fountain sketch by Wendy Barrett.

Fountain sketch by Wendy Barrett.

After lunch I did a sketch of some of the people sitting on the edge of the fountain.

It was a great day to be in Central Park, especially with friends. It was a lot of fun spending time with Wendy while she was here. She leaves tomorrow morning for Massachusetts and will be meeting up one afternoon with another blogging artist friend of ours, Michael Perchard.

Jewish Museum Sketches and Museums Along Central Park

The sketches I posted yesterday were from my travels to and from the city last week. Here are the sketches I did. The NYC Urban Sketchers met at the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side. This was my first visit to this museum. On the second floor there was an exhibit of the fashions of Isaac Mirahi. I picked my favorite in the collection. It wasn't easy to sketch there because I couldn't use a stool and the "walls" were fabric stretched on bars. There was nothing to lean on!

I wandered around the rest of the exhibits on the 3rd and 4th floors. Most of the objects were really small or really ornate and difficult to sketch. I did find a few pots, a menorah, and a scroll case.

We had lunch outside and it seemed like it was warm enough to sit out for a while, so a few other sketchers and I sat long Fifth Avenue and first sketched the Guggenheim...

and then the National Academy Museum (which I've never visited).

Last Saturday's gloomy skies didn't dampen (no pun intended) the enthusiasm of the NYC Urban Sketchers to sketch at and around FAO Schwarz. The store is slated for closure, but it was most certainly busy. Outside the store there was a greeter dressed like a toy soldier. He was constantly busy posing with people outside the entrance. It was hard to get a photo or a sketch done without someone besides him in the picture...so I included a visitor.

When it started to sprinkle some of us headed into the store. I think I could have spent days there sketching. There were so many things I wanted to sketch. This was my first trip to FAO Schwarz so I knew I had to find the "Big Piano" what the movie "Big" made so famous. I had to sketch that if nothing else. I had a hard time deciding where I could stand to sketch without being in the way...off to the side seemed to work best. The people on the piano changed quite quickly so sketching them was not so easy. I decided to focus on just one girl and included some of the people behind her. 

After lunch we headed over to the carriage horses by Central Park. They also may be leaving the city...the decision has not been made yet. They are a definite draw for tourists and were very busy today. We had two horses and their drivers in front of us for a short while so I concentrated on the sketch of this horse and driver before they moved away. I added another carriage that replaced them a while later. I needed to include a bit of the Plaza in the background for atmosphere.

Of course no street in NYC is complete without a food vendor or two...we might starve if we walk too far without being tempted. lol

Our day of sketching last Saturday was much too short. There was so much more I would have loved to sketch. Maybe we/I will just have to return.