Fifth Avenue Blooms

A few weekends ago the NYC Urban Sketchers met across from St Patrick's Cathedral to sketch "Fifth Avenue Blooms," an exhibit of colorful sculptures and live flowers stretching 12 blocks along Fifth Avenue. It was designed by French artist, Alexandre Benjamin Navet with Van Cleef & Arpels, and there are arches, benches, pergolas and other elements in bright colors. In addition there are activities and music for the public to enjoy.

We started out sitting in front of the statue of Atlas which is in front of one of the buildings that are part of Rockefeller Center. With the flower sculpture in the foreground I had a bit of St Patrick's Cathedral as my background.

Next I crossed Fifth Avenue and sat on the steps of St Patrick's Cathedral looking back at the statue of Atlas holding up the world. When I was in college I worked part-time for a company that was in that building, so I brings back some memories. I was able to include a few sketchers at work.

After lunch I left the group and ventured a little further up toward Central Park. There was a sculpture of arches that people could walk under straight ahead in my view.

The group gathered once again for our "show and tell" near the fountain across from the Plaza Hotel.

I almost forgot to include the sketch I did on the Long Island Railroad going into the city.

A Visit to the Frick Collection

Last Sunday the NYC Urban Sketchers met at the Frick Collection on Fifth Ave and 70th St. It is amazing to think that all the artworks inside belonged to one family. Below is part of the Wikipedia entry about the museum.

The Frick is one of the pre-eminent small art museums in the United States, with a high-quality collection of old master paintings and fine furniture housed in six galleries within the former residence. Frick had intended the mansion to eventually become a museum. Many of the paintings are still arranged according to Frick's design. Besides its permanent collection, the Frick has always organized small, focused temporary exhibitions.^[6]

The collection features some of the best-known paintings by major European artists, as well as numerous works of sculpture and porcelain. It also has 18th century French furniture, Limoges enamel, and Oriental rugs.^[1] After Frick's death, his daughter, Helen Clay Frick, expanded the collection, with a third of its artworks acquired since 1919. Although the museum cannot lend the two-thirds that belonged to Frick, as stipulated in his will, the Frick Collection does lend artworks and objects acquired since his death.^[6]

Included in the collection are Jean-Honoré Fragonard's masterpiece The Progress of Love, three paintings by Johannes Vermeer including Mistress and Maid, two paintings by Jacob van Ruisdael including Quay at Amsterdam,^[7] and Piero della Francesca's St. John the Evangelist.

My favorite spot was the Garden Court where I could easily sit for hours. It is beautiful and peaceful.

Tucked away in other rooms and alcoves were sculptures, paintings, furniture and accessories...all of them lovely.

One room had enormous paintings and portraits as well as a few tables with sculptures.

You can see that I worked in watercolors and ink. I was almost finished with this sketch when one of the guards came over to me and my friend to tell us that we could only use pencil...no color at all, not even colored pencil. It struck me funny because I had been painting and sketching at that point for nearly 4 hours and a good part of the time that I was sketching the alcove above this sketch, another guard had been watching me paint and hadn't said a word about it. Later in the day when we were sharing our sketches someone who that same guard approached about "no color" was told that the guard's boss was making his rounds so they were speaking to all the artists to warn them.

NY Public Library & Bryant Park

Last weekend the NYC Urban Sketchers met at the NY Public Library on 42nd St and Fifth Ave.

This was sketched in the Rose Reading Room on the 3rd floor. I hope I didn't miss any books. lol That's one of our sketchers, Louis at the table.

Next I headed outside, hoping that it was warm enough to sit and sketch by the skating rink.  I used artistic license to eliminate about 200 people from this sketch. 

Bryant Park has a wonderful Holiday Market at this time of year with small booths filled with wonderful vendors. I stood up on an elevated section so I could draw the booth as well as some of the crowd.

Early Saturday

Last Saturday I was meeting the NYC Urban Sketchers in the city at 11:00, but of course I went in early. I took the 7:40 train from Ronkonkoma into the city. There were sketching opportunities on the train.

We were meeting at the American Museum of Natural History. It opens at 10:00 and I was there at 9:30. That gave me a little time to do an ink sketch of the building from across Fifth Avenue before I got on the line to get in. I'm glad I was there early because everyone who came at 11:00 ended up waiting on line for about 45 minutes.

Yes, Fake Journal Month started today and I was ready with my first "fake journal" page. You can find Tracy's story here:

http://tracyattheranch.blogspot.com

Art Deco and Rockefeller Center

On Saturday my friend, Susan and I headed into Manhattan on the subway. There are always some models if the train isn't too crowded. The woman on the left got off at the first stop (the nerve of her) so I moved on to sketch the second woman.

This woman was directly across from me. She alternated between being half asleep with her head all the way back, looking straight ahead, or putting on makeup.

The NYC Urban Sketchers had planned a day at Rockefeller Center to sketch the art deco in the buildings, decorations, etc. But we got there and the Christmas tree was standing up behind the skating rink and the workmen were putting scaffolding around the tree so that it could be decorated. We just HAD to do a sketch of that! Now you may be thinking to yourself...this is just the start of November...but this tree is BIG and it takes an extremely long time to put all the lights on it. When you see it finally lit ( the lighting is on Dec 3) you will see what I mean. I still don't understand how they keep the tree from now until the beginning of January without it losing it's needles. When we had fresh Christmas trees as a kid the needles started falling off the tree as we were bringing it home. lol

I found a spot in the middle of the promenade that leads from 5th Avenue all the way to the skating rink. There were art deco designs over the doorway, but I was interested in sketching the workers who were planting the tall trees that would be decorated and will stand in the middle of all the lit angels that will also be put up. By this time I was starting to get cold. My body was warm enough in my down jacket, but my feet and hands were cold. I did have fingerless (and regular) gloves that helped my hands but I couldn't do anything about my feet.

Then I walked down 49th Street a half a block and sketched the NBC Studio marquis. It had some art deco elements too. Then it was time for lunch...and we were able to warm up indoors. Yay!!!

After lunch I sat on 5th Avenue right in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral facing across 5th Ave where  the bronze Atlas is supporting on his shoulders, not the earth, but a representation of the heavens (or so says the brochure about Rockefeller Center). This is the largest sculpture in the Center...he stands 15 feet tall on a 9 foot high pedestal. I happen to have worked in this building when I was in college and passed this statue just about every day.

Since it now gets dark so early we headed indoors to share our sketches with the other members before most of them headed home. A few of us hung out a bit longer at a local restaurant bar, but only Mark sketched there. It was a good day...but a bit too cold to be sitting around. lol

Painting in Manhattan

Yesterday my husband and I had tickets to see "Billy Elliot" in the city. We decided to go in early. Unfortunately it was cold and still drizzling when we got there so we stopped into St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Ave. We sat in a pew in The Lady Chapel while I painted this. There were a number of art students all over the church sketching in their sketchbooks. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought of St. Patricks for rainy day sketching. This is about 4 x 6.

From there we walked down Fifth Avenue to the New York Public Library. It had stopped raining and I wanted to paint outdoors. I sat outside the library and sketched the view of the corner of Fifth Ave and 42nd St. I had to finish it indoors because by 4:30 it was already dark and I couldn't see what I was doing on the paper. lol This is also about 4 x 6.