Spring at The Met Cloisters - Part 3

 I headed back upstairs to the first courtyard garden for my third sketch. There were so many sketchers from our group working there that a good part of the time was used for socializing rather than sketching. It is always fun to meet up with friends that I hadn't see in a while, like my friend Julie who hadn't joined the weekend group in over a year. She has been the caretaker for her mom and that weekend her sister was helping out instead of Julie. Another sketcher had moved back to Athens, Greece, but was in NYC to visit her son and daughter who live there. It was great to see her and hear how she had started the first official Urban Sketchers group in Greece. I would love to go there and join in with her group.

I sketched the courtyard again, but this time I didn't have a lot of time. To speed things up I sketched with ink as well as the colored pencils. These two guys were good models and sat there for quite a while.

Our show and tell was held in one of the interior galleries off the courtyard. Here is a photo of the group from the day.

The trip home wasn't as easy as getting there since there was no internet reception to get the GPS started for the return trip. It took a while for the reception to kick in and give me directions. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to make my way home the old fashioned way. lol

Spring at The Met Cloisters - Part 2

 Downstairs at The Met Cloisters there were two more enclosed gardens. One had no covered area and it was quite chilly and windy. The other garden was in the courtyard by the cafe. I found an unoccupied table in the cafe and sat there while I sketched the view out from the shaded portico of the cafe. It was semi open to the air so I kept my jacket on due to the chill from the wind. Several other sketchers were working in the cafe and some were working with wet media. The guards didn't bother anyone there...I guess since you could have food and drinks they didn't mind the wet media there. They did come over to several sketchers at the other courtyard garden upstairs and told they they could only use pencil. I liked the view looking through the arches into the garden. 

Spring at the Met Cloisters - Part 1

The NYC Urban Sketchers met at The Met Cloisters in the Bronx. The good thing about this venue is that I can easily drive there if I am going alone. The trip took about 1 1/2 hrs by car and it was easy to park. I've been there with the Urban Sketchers before, but not when the gardens were open. This was so great! Flowers and trees were in bloom and although there were a lot of people, I was able to find a good view for each sketch. Like most museums The Met Cloisters only allows dry media for sketching, so I brought along my new set of colored pencils. They worked well but didn't give me the richness of my watercolors. Not being use to pencils as a medium, I forgot to pack a pencil sharpener. Luckily there were friendly sketchers who helped me out. 

This was the main courtyard garden surrounded by Medieval arches and porticos. It was beautiful. I tucked myself into a corner in the sunshine and it was warm enough to take off my jacket while I was sketching. By the time I finished this sketch there must have been at least 30 people in the garden and people (mostly sketchers) sitting on the walls.

The Met Cloisters - Part 2

 The arches and fancy decoration were a lot to capture. I liked this view looking through the arches to other arches in the midground and then the background. I did use ballpoint pen to make the lines stand out a little...nobody from the Cloisters noticed.

I finished the above sketch with some time to spare before we were doing our show and tell, so I found a ceiling area that had potential. This was done in a gray toned Strathmore sketchbook and I added a bit of white colored pencil for highlights.

The Met Cloisters - Part 1

On Saturday the NYC Urban Sketchers met at The Met Cloisters which is located in Fort Tryon Park, high on a hill overlooking the Hudson River. I decided to drive and did the trip by myself. I wasn't sure how long it would actually take me or what the parking situation would be, so I left earlier than my GPS told me to. I got there about 15 minutes before it actually opened. I was able to park directly across from the main entrance. Sitting there, munching on my bagel, in my side-view mirror I noticed Mel and Josh (who were hosting the event) standing in front with another person. I decided to do a very quick sketch of what I was seeing in the mirror. My art supplies were in the trunk and I only had minutes. I grabbed the only paper near me in the car which was a pad of small sticky-notes about 3 inches square. That was my paper. You can see that the signs are backwards because I was seeing them in reverse in the mirror. This took me under 5 minutes.

I don't remember ever being inside, although my sister says my dad took us there when she was maybe in 5th grade (which would put me in 1st grade). The interior is really lovely with chapels, arches, and courtyards. I sketched alongside some of the arches facing toward a small chapel.

The Cloisters' policy for artwork is pencil only, so I used mostly watercolor pencils dry for the sketches I did.