When I finished sketching inside the library I got in my car and realized I had a great view of this house across the street. I figured I would do just a quick sketch and then I started and realized how hard all the roof angles made this. I did it as quickly as I could because I was hungry...it was well past lunchtime.
I had to drop off paintings for a group exhibit at one of my local libraries. The exhibit is in a brand new building that I hadn't been in before, so I roamed around to see if it was conducive to do sketching from inside the building looking out the big windows. Prior to becoming the library the building was the St. Ursula Center Convent. It would be perfect on freezing cold days if there were good views. The views were OK but nothing to get real excited about. I ended up sitting at a table in one of the reading/work areas. There were some comfy looking blue chairs and some tables, stained glass windows...and lots of books and shelves. Lots of room for social distancing too.
I had my post-op visit with the doctor on Wednesday and stopped at a nearby park to do a sketch before coming home. There was still a lot of snow on the ground so there were nice shadows from the trees.
On Tuesday I was scheduled for my cataract surgery. In the process of prepping me for surgery they had me seated on a gurney in a pre-op waiting room. They checked my vitals, put in an IV, and then were putting drops in my eyes every 15 minutes. You know I don't like to waste time, so I pulled out a tiny sketchpad and a gel pen to sketch. Mind you that before I came to the Stony Brook Hospital Ambulatory Surgical Center I couldn't even see the largest letter on the eye chart. It was a pale, ghostly image that I couldn't identify.
Since I sketch regularly I am fairly used to sketching using only my right eye. The nurse would come in to do the drops and kept checking my progress with the sketch. Finally the doctor arrived and she came in to talk to me. She couldn't believe that I was sketching to begin with or that I was doing so well with only one working eye. She called in several people to see what I had done. She said I was currently her #1 artist. Here is the sketch I did.
This past weekend I did a second painting of the snow while I was waiting for the crew from the development to finish digging and plowing the parking lot. I got a slightly different view out the bedroom window, but in order to sketch from here I have to stand and sketch. There is a large shrub right outside the window that would block the whole view if I sat down.
With our warmer weather the last few days most of the snow on the bushes and shrubs has melted or fallen off. It doesn't look quite as pretty, so I'm ready for it to be gone. lol
It was hard to do a virtual trip to Denali National Park and not sketch some wildlife...so I searched for a reference to work with. This bear looked perfect for sketching quickly. I used watercolors, watercolor pencils, a colored pencil and some gouache in this. Anyway, I'm glad I wasn't up lose and personal with this guy.
On Saturday the NYC virtual group had the theme of trains and train travel. I downloaded a few images from the web page we were provided and found this one of the Durango and Silverton Railroad in Colorado. I knew I wanted to do some kind of steam engine and this fit the bill.
Of course I've got a lot of memories of travel by trains having traveled on the NYC subway for years. I also did the train trip from NYC to Florida as a college student for spring break, (and never slept the entire way since I can't sleep sitting up), and used the trains in Europe many times to travel from country to country. I always thought there was something romantic about train travel,..maybe I watched too many movies. lol
