Portraits for Arts on Terry

 Last Sunday I participated in Arts on Terry with the Patchogue Sketch Club. Terry Street in Patchogue is closed for this event. This year our group project was called "We By Us." We were partnered with another member of the group and we did portraits of each other from a photo. 

My friend, Pat Sweeney and I were paired. We were given a 14 x 16 canvas to paint on. Since I do watercolors my canvas was covered with watercolor paper. This was difficult because I don't do too many portraits and I don't work that large! My piece came out OK. I couldn't get Pat to look old enough to match her photo...but I guess younger is better than making her look older. 

Pat wanted the portrait to reflect her life in 2023 so she wanted the portrait to include one of her many hats that she has been wearing since finding a spot of cancer near her left eye. So I did the portrait with a hat. Right before Arts on Terry, Pat had her Mohs surgery and the entire left side of her face was coved in bandages, so she didn't make an appearance at the event. But she was there in spirit and I sent her lots of photos of what was going on. She had some difficulty doing my portrait because her vision was obscured by the bandages. I think she did a pretty good job!

My portrait of Pat.

Pat is on top and the portrait of me is on the bottom.

Here are all the portrait pairs.

All the artists except Pat.

It was fun to see all the different styles and that everyone did something so unique.

Assorted Sketches

The Patchogue Sketch Club met by the MoCA gallery again for people to work on their portraits for Arts on Terry that is taking place tomorrow. My portrait of Pat was finished so I spent my time sketching what was around me...

a parked car...

Mark working in his sketchbook...

Mike working on his portrait of Maryann...

and Jenn sketching from her iPad.

This sketch below was done at the Nissan dealership while I waited for my car inspection and brake work.

Beach Fence & Sketchbook Revival Begins

I needed to do some sketching for the creativespark.art scavenger hunt that I am posting. One of the items was a fence. I found this one down at a small beach park in Islip.

I sketched a bench for "outdoor seating" while I was there and a few birds for "something with feathers."

I am also taking part in Karen Abend's Sketchbook Revival. It is the 5th year she has organized this project and it goes on for 2 weeks with 2 lessons by different instructors each day. I don't always do each lesson and definitely don't keep up and do them on the days they are posted.

The first lesson was by Courtney Cerruti who had us start with one color of watercolor and then mix it with as many colors as we could. Once the colors were dry we were challenged to form something with each color. I didn't do the other two parts of her lesson - color wheels and blind contours with watercolor added.

The second lesson was with Carla Sondheim doing Stylized Zoom Portraits using mixed media.

 

Portrait Sketches

 Last night the Patchogue Sketch Club met at the MOCA gallery in Patchogue for a portrait sketching session. Since this group meets in the evening at 6:30 the fact that we are losing light outside so early is making it impossible to continue our sketching outdoors. Mark arranged for use of the gallery space and we took turns posing for others to sketch us. Each person that modeled sat for about 20 minutes. I didn't think ahead and bring good drawing pencils so I had to work with what I had. This was good practice for next week when I think we will be having an actual model to draw. We got in 6 poses in all...and I was one of them so I only have 5 drawings from last night. One thing I know I have to work on is body proportions. The heads are always too large for the bodies I draw. I adjusted these a lot but I still can see that they need work.

When this young lady modeled I knew I had to do her in color so I could capture her sections of pink hair. I wish I had a pinker color...

Hand to Hand and More

On Wednesday night the Patchogue Sketch Club met to sketch hands. Mark set up several variations of two mannikin hands. I sketched in graphite.

I only did two setups of the hands. Instead I did sketches of a few of the sketchers while they were working. Here is Linda.

We were on Zoom. Winston's whole head wasn't in the box, but I sketched what I could see.

 

Convention - Night 3

I was more focused last night for night 3 of the Democratic National Convention. There were a lot of speakers but I selected the main ones to sketch. Kalama was last to speak, but since she was the focus of the night I'm putting her first. These are all on the same page which I hope has enough room for the main speakers tonight. I'll show the whole page when it is completed.

Convention - Nights 1 & 2

Since this is such a pivotal time in our country I decided I would do some small sketches of some of the speakers at the Democratic National Convention. I watched some of the speakers live and some on video while I sketched. These are small...no bigger than 3 x 4. At first I just did the portraits but then I went back and did the background for each of the speakers. I hope you can recognize all of them. I need to post this now so I can sketch some of the speakers from tonight.

Zoom Sketches

The South Bay Art Association had a Zoom meeting tonight for members to get together and talk and share what they have been up to. I am on the Board and we hope it will be a way for everyone to feel connected since it has been so long since we've been able to have any real kind of meeting. While people were talking I tried to sketch some of the members. I got a few likenesses, but not many. For some strange reason I thought I was using one pen and it turned out to be a ballpoint pen instead. Then I used a Sketch and Wash pencil over it for shading...without the wash. They are small but it was fun to do. I probably sketched for about an hour and a half. Some people I couldn't do because of the way they had their computer or tablet or phone situated...and I couldn't get a full view of them. Of course they didn't sit still either which wasn't helpful. 

Portrait Party & Digital Sketch

For today's NYC Urban Sketchers event we had a portrait party. We've done them quite a few times IRL but today's event was organized on Zoom. Anyone who wanted to attend who didn't know how to use it was tutored by someone who did so that everyone was ready. We all met in the Zoom "auditorium" where Mark welcomed everyone and explained what we would be doing. There was a morning sketch event and an afternoon event. We were split up into random groups of anywhere between 6-8 sketchers and sent off to our meeting room. Each person in the group posed for a 10 minute sketch. My morning group only had 6 people so we finished a bit early. That gave us time to chat with each other and share the sketches we had done. A few of our group were people I am friendly with but some were new to me. One woman was from Calgary. I sketched out each portrait with a water-soluble graphite pencil, and then went over that with permanent ink. Then I added watercolor on top. Here are my sketches from the morning.

At 11:55 we all went back to the "auditorium." Some people went and had lunch, some posted their sketches, and some of us just hung out there talking because it was the first time many of us had seen each other since social isolation began. It was fun to catch up with everyone.

After the lunch break those of us who stayed for the afternoon session or who had just joined for the afternoon session were assigned to another breakaway group meeting to sketch. This time there were 7 people in my group so I got to sketch a total of 11 people. Here are my afternoon sketches...remember each of these was created in 10 minutes.

Of course we were indoor sketching on one of the nicest days we've had in nearly 2 weeks. As soon as we were done with the portraits I headed out for a ride down to Hecksher State Park in Islip. I sat facing the water and sketched with ArtRage on my iPad. Some people were on the sand enjoying the sunshine on one of those orange inflatable cushions. There were a lot of people down by the bay, but for the most part they were in small groups and keeping distant from other people. I didn't get out of my car...just sat with the window open and let the sun shine in.

Sally

Our model at portraits was Sally this week. This was my last portrait session for a while because I will be traveling soon. I still haven't worked out posting to blogspot on my iPad so I don't know if I will be able to keep the blog going while I am gone. I will post to Facebook and Instagram.

Pam

It has been a while since I went to my portrait sketching group. Pam posed for us on Wednesday and I was able to do one regular portrait and then a quick one (on thin sketch paper not watercolor paper).

Sally

Sometimes I get a good likeness when I do portraits but today that didn't happen. I did a quick 10 minute sketch of Sally first. Then I attempted a real portrait. Sally organizes our Tuesday morning group and when we have no model she often volunteers to sit, so I've sketched her quite a few times. As I look at this I can see that I made her face and especially her nose too long. Also her hands are too small in proportion to the rest of her. She had a lovely parasol with her that wouldn't stay open and was so difficult to sketch with all those folds. As I've said before I show what I've sketched each day...the good and the bad.