Return to Quogue Wildlife Refuge

My plein air group scheduled a return to the Quogue Wildlife Refuge this week. It was a miserable, rainy day. Luckily they have a nice building with big picture windows where we were able to sit and paint.

Geometric Shapes

Last night the Patchogue Sketch Club met for an evening of sketching geometric shapes. Everyone brought along what they had and we shared. Some geometric shapes aren't easy to find. We had no cones!

Bay Avenue

I think every town around here has a Bay Avenue. This is the view down Bay Ave in Islip. It ends at a small bay beach on the water. I liked the diminishing street lights looking down the road. Of course, like most of the streets here that end at the bay there is no parking along the street. I just ignored that and pulled over on the shoulder to paint for a while.

Woods View

With the leaves changing color there are a few spots where the color is pretty intense, like here along Montauk Highway in Moriches.

North Fork Concertina - Sketches 1-4

Yesterday I didn't feel like taking the train(s) to meet the NYC sketchers in Brooklyn. It just sounded like it involved too much energy. Instead I decided to head out to the North Fork of Long Island, a place I love to sketch. Usually when I go out there I gravitate to the same kind of spots all the time...the farmer's markets. So I came up with a sketching plan that was semi-successful.

Before I left home I made a concertina (accordion style) sketchbook from a sheet of paper from a Winsor Newton watercolor pad. I cut it into strips that were 6 inches high and marked off and folded pages that were 6 inches long. Then I glued 2 strips together giving me a length that was 8 pages long.

My plan was to start right at the corner where the "North Fork" begins which is where Rt 105 and Rt 25 intersect outside of Riverhead. Cruising along Rt 25 my plan was to drive about 1 mile and pull over to sketch whatever the view was. My first stop was at 1.2 miles on my odometer where I had a view of the Woodside Orchard store in Jamesport. It sells pies and cider and things like that. I parked across the street and sketched that view.

#momentsketchers

When I finished that sketch I drove another 1.2 miles and found myself right near Jamesport Vineyard. I drove into the parking lot, sat my mobile studio near one of the buses there for a tour, and sketched the vines and building. All the grapes have been harvested and the leaves on the vines are turning autumn colors.

Next driving through Jamesport I came across this field of cabbages growing with such great green colors that I had to stop the car. I had driven a little over a mile to this spot. I must admit I had painted from that location before but I don't know if there had been cabbages growing or something else at the time.

Now this was where the "drive a mile" fell apart.  I had to find a restroom and I was starving! So mileage went out the window and I drove to find lunch. That took a while and I didn't want to go any farther east, so I turned around and headed west stopping at the first place that called to me. That was the Cutchogue Diner.

By this time it was already 4:30 and I decided to buy a few veggies at the farmers' market and head home. I do plan on going back out there and finishing the pages in the sketchbook I made. Hopefully I will get to do the rest soon. 

Seatuck Visit

We had a few rainy days recently and I was in Islip to do early voting. Since I was already there I decided to stop at the Seatuck National Wildlife Refuge. I have sketched there several times in the past and when we were there a few months ago I decided I wanted to go back and do a sketch of this room with this couch. My friend, Maureen, works there so I also got to see her while I was there.

When I finished I moved into another room and did a sketch of the view out the window. The property was originally part of the Scully estate and was donated to the Audubon Society who used it as a wildlife sanctuary and nature center. Suffolk County purchased it from Audubon and continues to maintain it as a wildlife preserve and sanctuary.

Quogue Wildlife Preserve

The day that I sketched the goose below, I was working on a watercolor of the view by the lake. The leaves here have finally come into color. It had been a drizzly morning and I did have the option to paint from inside. I liked this view better...and the rain held off the rest of the morning.