Rocky Waterfall

Brookwood Hall and Park in Islip was the meeting point for the Patchogue Sketch Club last week. There is a lake, a ball field, a garden, and Wednesday night there was also a concert. We hadn't sketched there before so there was no set location in the park to meet. I wandered around and found a serenity garden which had a rocky waterfall. It was peaceful and surprisingly enough a few other sketchers found me. It was fun to play with the rocks and foliage.

 

Ronkonkoma Train Station

 The Patchogue Sketch Club recently met at the Ronkonkoma Long Island Railroad Station. If I am going into NYC I often take the train from this station, but I don't have time to sketch there. It was nice to have the time to capture the architecture of the station.

Patchogue Lighthouse View

 Recently the Patchogue Sketch Club went to the Sandspit Marina in Patchogue for our sketch night. Right off the end of the parking area is a small lighthouse that we all sketched. 

Sketch Club at Starbucks

Rain changed the plans for the Patchogue Sketch Club recently. Instead of sketching outside we had to find an indoor location and ended up in Starbucks in Patchogue. We had a theme of "Trinkets." Apparently trinkets covers something small that is inexpensive. I brought along a mermaid ornament, a tiny rubber duck, a ladybug pin that I've has since childhood, and a small magnet from Santa Fe. 

I was there before the other sketchers arrived, so I sketched a man at one of the other tables. He seemed so deep into whatever was on his computer screen.

Ceramic Pieces

 The theme for the Patchogue Sketch Club last week was "ceramic." I collected a few interesting and colorful pieces from home to bring and sketch.

The Doll

Last week our Wednesday night sketch theme was dolls. My friend, Rosanne O'Reilly belongs to a doll collectors club and they had a meeting earlier in the day. So she volunteered to bring some of her dolls for us to sketch. She brought about 8 of them, so there were a lot to choose from. A few other people brought in dolls that they had at home too. I selected this fashionable one with the name, Gene, dressed in a beautiful outfit.

Valentine Items

 Our theme last week for the Patchogue Sketch Club was Valentine or love related. I collected an assortment of Valentine items for a still life.

Sewing Notions

The Patchogue Sketch Club met recently to sketch sewing notions. I've collected a lot of spools of thread over the years, and can actually remember which sewing projects I used them for. Most of these items were in a sewing box given to me by my parents. It came in handy, but seems to be bursting at the seams. 

Arts on Terry

 Arts on Terry was recently held in Patchogue. Two of my art groups were represented. The Patchogue Sketch Club once again did a group project...this time we did printing. I posted a few photos of the group in action carving the plates and printing on paper and on fabric. Here is what our wall looked like...although it was hard to get the whole wall without a lot of glare on the pieces. The lobster prints were mine.

My favorite part of Arts on Terry is seeing the live paintings that are created. My friend, Nora Francese was painting nearby, so I sat and sketched her at work.

A friend's friend snapped a photo of me sketching Nora.

Here is Nora almost finished. She started at noon and was painting until 5 PM. There were somewhere between 8-10 artists selected to do the large paintings. They are always impressive!

In addition to the wall with our prints on it, our group had a table with assorted merchandise as well as paintings and sketches on display. Here are a few of the members of the group.

Printing Project - Part 1

 The Patchogue Sketch Club has been working on a printing project for Arts on Terry, a local art exhibition that is taking place on Sunday. Each of our participating members created a carved plate of something that had to do with under the sea. Here are the designs that were carved.

This lobster is mine.

We all did black prints of out plates. Then they were arranged in a pleasing order.

Then a piece of fabric was placed over the inked plates and rubbed until the images transferred.

This is the final print of the images on the blue fabric.

We continued printing with the plates...this time in blue ink on an orangey fabric. The designs showed up better on this fabric. I think the blue one competes too much with the print designs.

Printing Project Part 1

Every year for the last few years the Patchogue Sketch Club has taken part in an outdoor festival called Arts on Terry. We always do a group project. This year we are doing a printing project. Each of the members carved a plate of something having to do with under the sea. We have printed the plates together on fabric. The first ones were done with blue ink on an orangy fabric.

Here is my lobster plate ready for printing. 

Here are the other plates that were printed.

Janet's seahorse.

Marianne's scuba cat.

Rosanne's underwater scene.

Laurie's fish.

Casey's koi.

Here they are printed on the fabric.

Then we printed using black ink on a blueish fabric.

The contrast in some areas wasn't quite as good as on the orange.

 

Lazy Bunny Ukulele Band

 Last Wednesday the Patchogue Sketch Club went to sketch one of the last of the bands scheduled for the summer concert series in Sayville. The Lazy Bunny Ukulele Band was playing. The band consists of 4 members, but before they performed a young man with disabilities was invited up to sing and play his guitar. Bobby sang "Crocodile Rock" and didn't have the best voice, but the audience loved him! I think he is in some way related to one or more of the band members and many people in the audience seemed to know him. He was so filled with energy and pride to be performing that I sketched him first. Then he left the stage and the other band members played. Of course I added them as they played. They were a fun group and had a lot of people...kids especially...dancing to their music.

I sent a copy of the sketch to the band on Facebook and they loved it so much that they posted it to their feed. They asked if they could make copies of it for each of them, and I said yes. Then I was contacted by Bobby's mom who is interested in purchasing the original sketch. She was so touched that I included him in the sketch, and apparently he was thrilled. 

Mosaic Pillar

Last week the Patchogue Sketch Club met at the Terry Street Garden to sketch the new sculptures installed there. This post was a part of Eileen W. Palmer's community mosaic installation, "Handmade: Story Pillars." She covered each pillar with small sections of mosaics created by members of the Suffolk community. Eileen's creation was so unusual and beautiful. In addition to putting the mosaics together in a cohesive, harmonious pattern, she included a QR code and photo for some of the artists. The QR code took you to a youTube video that she created telling that person's story. The whole idea was impressive.

Here are a few actual photos of her sculptures.

 

Susan's Garden

Last week my friend, Susan, invited the Patchogue Sketch Club to sketch her garden. I've sketched there many times, but this was the first time the group did. At the end of the evening we gathered together to make s'mores over a small fire. We had fun!

 

30x30 Direct Watercolor #22 Meadow Croft & Flowers

The lawn at Meadow Croft Estate in Sayville had some lovely yellow flowers...perfect for a 30x30 Direct Watercolor.

The Patchogue Sketch Club went to the Swan River Preserve in Patchougue the other night. The foliage there is so tall it is hard to find a view to sketch. I ended up focusing on some small flowers against the slats of the fence.

 

Lighthouse Prints

 The Patchogue Sketch Club has been doing some printmaking. I designed a lighthouse template and made a few black & white prints and ghost prints.

I was happy with the way these came out, but I wanted to try a multi colored print. That isn't as easy as it sounds. I ran out of time at our meeting and our printmaking is supposedly on hiatus for a while as we return to outdoor sketching. I will try to do it at home, but at present I only have black ink. If I get it done I will post the results.

Printmaking

The Patchogue Sketch Club has been doing some printmaking when we meet. I'm not sure what our project will be but this year our group project for Arts on Terry will involve printmaking. We did these on styrofoam plates and they are about 4 x 6. We drew our designs with ballpoint pens and then flattened the areas that we wanted to have stay white. Most of us were able to do 2 good prints and 2 ghost prints. The hardest part was getting the lettering correct because it has to be the reverse of what the word will be. 

Printmaking

It seems like my art groups are getting me involved in printmaking. Last week the South Bay Art Association did gelli prints at our monthly meeting. I haven't done any in a long time so it was fun to play around with them. Luckily I brought my own brayer and some supplies, because the brayers they supplied were soft foam and didn't work well. Some of the members had done gelli prints before but the members who hadn't tried it before were a little lost. There was really no instruction, so I tried to help the members near me who looked lost. It wasn't a really conducive atmosphere to do prints because of the crowd, but we had fun talking and seeing some of the results people got.

Here are the three prints I made.  

Here I am with my creations.

Then last night the Patchogue Sketch Club also did prints. We will be doing some sort of print making for a few weeks. We used styrofoam as a print plate this time, carving into it with a ballpoint pen. People got some interesting designs and most of the prints came out pretty nice. Here is my print and the ghost print. I had to remember that the lettering has to be carved backwards so it will print the right way.