We had a stretch of very cold weather recently. It was too cold to sit in my "mobile studio" without keeping the engine running, so I looked for an indoor location for sketching. I hadn't been to Panera in a while so I stopped for a coffee and a sketch. They have a front area that has tables and booths that have a pretty good view of the counter.
A few weeks ago I stopped at Shrimpy's Burrito Bar in East Islip for lunch. I decided it looked like it could be a possible location for indoor sketching. I went back a second time, ordered my lunch and started sketching. My lunch became part of the sketch. (Resisting eating it was a challenge so I had to do a quick sketch of that part. Then I ate the shrimp taco, but left the chips to sketch them and snack on them while I was working. The girl behind the counter knew I was sketching and didn't seem to be bothered that I was there for so long. I eventually snuck her into a space on the page. She was thrilled when I showed it to her and she asked if she could take a photo of it. Of course I let her. She told me I was welcome to come back and sketch any time.
On one of our recent cold days I wanted to sketch indoors, not from my mobile studio. I headed over to the Panera in Bohemia. It is set up so that I can get a view of the counter and the people ordering. Of course I got there and nobody was at the counter, so I started with the people sitting at the table on the left and made sure to leave space for people when they went to the counter to order. It worked. There was a bigger pillar with stones and a coffee bar set up there, but I used artistic license to move that because it would take up too much space. All of this was done directly in ink.
We were only up in Maine for a few days. Sitting in my sister's living room I did a sketch of her dog, Toby, relaxing on "his chair." It was done with a simple digital program I downloaded to my phone while I was sitting there. I knew if I moved to get up and get my sketchbook Toby would be off that chair in a second. lol
We had a few rainy days this week which means I was looking for something indoors to sketch. I decided to gather a few things for the current Creative Spark Scavenger Hunt. I included something sweet (raspberry jam), something with numbers (timer), something savory (pesto), something spicy (hot sauce), and a tool (spoon). This was done as a continuous line drawing.
On Sunday the South Bay Art Association had our general meeting. It is usually held on a Wednesday but we were invited to a meeting at the newly renovated Center for Environmental Education and Discovery at the historic Washington Lodge. One of the directors spoke to us about the history of the building and gave us a tour of the building and the 60 acre property. The goal of the center is connecting people with nature and connecting nature and art. I sketched Sally as she spoke to us and included two of our members who were sitting near me. This was done with water-soluble brown ink.
