30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 2

My plan is to focus on skies in landscapes and waterscapes for Leslie Saeta's "30 Paintings in 30 Days." You can see the work by the other artists on Leslie's page here: http://lesliesaeta.blogspot.com

I find the best skies are usual around the water where you have a more open view.

Day 2 was painted down by the Bellport Dock and I'm calling it "The Breach." When Hurricane Sandy came through Long Island in October of 2012 it created a breach in the barrier island of Fire Island that is about as big as two football fields. The debate is still going on as to if this is beneficial/harmful for the Great South Bay so the verdict is still out.

Yesterday I did two of my favorite things. I painted and I shopped...I had coupons that were going to expire lol, so I stopped at the Tanger Outlet Mall in Riverhead. The temps were just tolerable to walk around for a while and then I stopped for a coffee & sketch break at the Food Court.

Sketching Opportunity

You really never know when a sketching opportunity will present itself...and you should always be prepared. Today was my birthday and I decided to go out to the Tanger Outlet Mall in Riverhead and do some shopping for myself. Then I planned to find a spot to sketch. I walked through much of the the outlet complex which is really big and I was on line in the Loft Outlet waiting to pay for something when the fire alarms went off. They made all of us evacuate the store and many people were clustered outside including all the sales people. I decided to use the opportunity to sketch while we waited. I had a good ink pen for sketching in my purse but my sketchbook was in the car at the other end of the mall. I did find my book of outlet coupons so I sketched on the back few pages which had coupons for hotels and assorted things in the area which I knew I wouldn't use. I did the ink sketches on location but added the watercolor when I got home. Without the color it was just to hard to make out the figures over all the print on the page.

These two women were sales personnel from the store. Luckily it was a warm day and they really didn't need coats.

The woman on the left worked in the store but the woman on the right was a customer.

There were a lot of emergency vehicle in the parking lot by the affected stores. I sketched those too. It took about 45 minutes before they finally let everyone back inside. (No, that isn't fire behind the firetruck. It was trees and once I put the color on I couldn't get it to lighten. lol)