Bicycles at the Beach

 At the end of the Field 6 parking lot at Robert Moses Beach there is an area that always has bicycles locked up. I'm not sure who they belong to and quite often they are a very rusted collection of bikes. I was surprised to see that the ones locked there on my recent trip were in much better condition. I used artistic license and only sketched two of them, but there were actually about 7 of them. While I was sketching them a man came along and unlocked one and rode away. I don't know if you are allowed to bike ride across the bridge that gets to the beach so I'm not quite sure where he was headed. I know that with a permit you can drive into the Fire Island communities as well as the Fire Island Lighthouse. I wonder where he was going...

Small Sketches

 These were all done for Creative Spark's Scavenger Hunts.

This is a portion of the Great South Bay as seen from the Blue Point Dock.

Bicycles outside the library.

My hand in several positions.

Recent Sketches

Here are a few sketches that I did recently. I took the Long Island Railroad from Hicksville recently. I got there a little early but was able to pull out my small sketchbook and capture a few of the people in the waiting room before my train arrived. 

One of the items we had to sketch for the last Scavenger Hunt on creativespark.art recently was wheels. I found these two bikes locked together.

Bicycle in the Dunes

Happy Valentine's Day!!! I hope you are having or had a great day.

Ever since I attended the Symposium in Amsterdam I've had this thing for sketching bicycles. Everybody rides a bike there and they are everywhere. This bike was at the beach at Robert Moses State Park in the bike rack by the dunes. There are always bikes there. I don't know if they have been left behind or if they belong to workers at the park. I used artistic license and only did one of the three bikes that were there.

Maritime Museum

Wednesday night the Patchogue Sketch Club met at the Long Island Maritime Museum in Sayville. I have to say I have never been inside the museum itself, but have sketched some of the old boats outside and the wonderful views across the marsh to the bay from the docks there. It was good to be able to schedule my night so that I could get out for about 2 hours. Jerry is good that way. As long as I give him dinner before I go it seems to work out. This is the second week in a row that I have gone out to meet up with the sketchers.

Here is the view from the dock looking toward the bay.

Several of the sketchers are participating in Paint the Great South Bay this week. I have participate in the past but with Jerry's condition I knew there was no way that I could find the time to paint en plein air every day so that I would have several paintings to display. Mark, who I sketched below came to sketch on his bicycle. He had all his painting and sketching materials with him, including a stool to sit on. He ended up just sketching with his sketchbook resting on the handlebars of his bike. Of course I started sketching him when I finished the painting above and midway he decided he was leaving. He didn't leave right away but did turn completely around so that I had to sketch the rest of his bicycle from the opposite direction.

Virtual Travel Sketching with Google Maps

For the last few days Mark Leibowitz, who organizes the NYC Urban Sketchers, has been tantalizing us with the following sketch of his. We were given several links to get ourselves familiar with using Google Maps, because that was how we were going to do our weekly sketch event this weekend.

Digital sketch by Mark Leibowitz using Procreate.

It turns out that our destination was Amsterdam, where so many of us had attended the last Urban Sketchers Symposium. For the morning we were given a link to a particular area, but we had the freedom to wander around and pick a view nearby. Imagine my surprise to click on the link and find that I was right outside the apartment that I had rented when I was there. lol So of course I didn't really move around much because I wanted to do that view which included the apartment door, the canal, a houseboat, some typical Dutch architecture and the obligatory bicycles. My apartment is the one on the far right with the planter filled with flowers.

We took a lunch break and then Mark gave us a second link, this time to the area near the Rembrandt Museum. I took a bit of a walk on Google Maps and found this interesting shop.

Sketching today brought back some really good memories of my time in Amsterdam. The only thing I didn't miss was the days of 100 degree temperatures!

Bike with Flowers

It is fun to look through my photos for something for inspiration for another art postcard. The cards are being collected by my friend, Mary Jo Ernst for the troops overseas. This was inspired by a similar sketch I did in Amsterdam last year.

Inktober Day 17 - Bicycle

You would think that after being in Amsterdam this summer I would have gotten over my love-hate relationship with bicycles...but apparently not. To me they are like sketching cars. I have to put a lot of thought into what I am seeing and sketching. This was outside one of the Long Island Railroad train stations.

#inktober

#inktober2019