Blooms Day 1

I am participating in a quick challenge of sketching 5 Days of Blooms with Karen Abend and Sarah Simon. Each day for the 5 days we are provided with an image of a particular flower. You can use that image or any image of that particular flower to do your sketch in any materials or any way you want. I got off to a slow start and only have 2 of the flowers done for the first 4 days. lol I will catch up. The first flower in a ranunculus. I used a fountain pen with waterproof ink and colored non-waterproof inks to do my sketch.

Ink Sketches

 The other day I was down at Sayville Beach and did a few sketches just in ink.

People & Faces Workshop

 On Monday afternoon I took a mini workshop through Etchr. The subject was drawing people and faces quickly as an urban sketcher. I've had a lot of practice putting figures into my sketches but I tend to fuss and take my time. I have been approached to possibly do sketches at a wedding ceremony...I haven't committed myself yet but I thought this workshop might give me some hints and it did. The workshop was given by Ro'isin Cure' from Ireland. I took a workshop with her at the Urban Sketching Symposium in Porto a few years ago. It was a good workshop. The colors she usually uses are Paynes grey, burnt umber, burnt Sienna, yellow ochre, and opera or opera pink. You can pretty much mix any skin tones from these colors.

She sketches people directly in ink using a fude fountain pen that she turns over so she is using the other side of the nib. She gets lines that are almost like sketching in pencil. She also sketches in brown waterproof ink. I have a fude pen but it is filled with waterproof black ink and of course wouldn't sketch the way hers did. So I was at a bit of a disadvantage in that respect. We worked from a reference page of sketches she had already done and she explained her process for each sketch as we followed along. She tends to leave a lot of the sketch white (especially on the face). 

She also spoke about the differences in sketching adults vs children and gave a few hints about sketching the "older" adults. Here are my results. 

Unsuspecting Subjects

When I was in the city on Saturday the NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade was also going on. I didn't see too many people dressed in green on the trip in but there were some on the way home. These ladies were sitting diagonally across from me on the train and I had lots of time to do the sketch. They obviously had gone in for the parade and looked exhausted.

These people were on the train in the morning but I didn't bother using color since they were sketched on flimsy paper, not watercolor paper.

Downstairs in the newer section of the Morgan Library and Museum I sat for a while on the couch. Another sketcher was sketching across from me so I did a quick ink sketch of her before we left to go have a drink and share our sketches.

All of these people sketches are a good warm-up to the "1 Week 100 People" Challenge which I will be participating in again.

Information about the challenge can be found HERE.

Maybe you would like to participate too.

Gowanus 2 & Inktober 2018 Day 2

As I said yesterday the area near the Gowanus Canal is pretty gritty and industrial. There are some buildings that have been abandoned and graffitied. Some of the structures are weathered and worn and have seen better days like this waterpower that doesn't seem like it will be standing much longer.

Yesterday afternoon I met a friend for lunch and parked in a lot by the Bronxville train station. When I got back to my car there was a ticket on the windshield for an expired inspection sticker. I didn't realize that it was due..it was only October 1st. I swear in the past Nissan sent me a reminder, but if they did I must have overlooked it. So this morning I was at Nissan to have the inspection done so I wouldn't get a second ticket. Since I was at Nissan for an oil change a little over a week ago sketching the inside of the waiting room seemed old, so I sketched the view into the showroom this time for my Inktober Day 2 sketch. #inktober #inktober2018

Gowanus 1 & Inktober 2018 Day 1

On Saturday the NYC Urban Sketchers met at the gritty, industrial area around the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. We have sketched there before and it is such a fun place. It was (IS?) one of the most polluted areas of our country and they have been working hard to clean up the area. As they do clean it up, new buildings are sprouting up and a lot of the graffitied buildings are slowly coming down. The essence of the place is slowly being lost as the area is changing. The toxic waste area is slowly becoming a lovely residential area. I haven't been there in a few years and the changes are very noticable.

One of our members, Jessica is part of an organization called the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club. On Saturday they were offering free canoe rides on the canal. I thought about it but with my poor sense of balance I didn't want to end up in the canal or to have my art supplies in the canal. So I stayed on shore. Several of our sketchers did go out in the canoes and a few even managed to sketch while they were in the canoes. Here is the first of my sketches. It includes a composite sketch of the people in the canoe. They passed by too quickly so I included a bit of what I saw in each of the canoes.

Today is October 1st and you know what that means...INKTOBER!!! Started by Jake Parker, Inktober has become very popular. I have participated in it since 2015 and always look forward to it. If you click on this link you can find out more about it...or just grab a pen and sketch in ink. This was sketched from the parking lot at Smith Point Beach.

#inktober #inktober2018

More on Shelter Island

This is a smaller (5 x 7) ink and was that I also did on Shelter Island the other day.

Of course I did one sketch just in ink...perfect when you don't have a lot of time to sketch while you're waiting for other people.

Sketching at Robert Moses

I have been trying to continue my directly in ink sketches...mostly at the beach. 

These are fun to do.