Last week I took a ride to the Bayard Cutting Arboretum in Great River. I was looking for cherry trees in bloom, but instead I got sidetracked by this saucer magnolia instead. They always look so fragile and I'm afraid one strong wind will come along and they will fall to pieces.
Last week I joined my friend, Suzala painting at Caumsett State Park in Lloyd Harbor. We focused on a view looking out of the park toward the water. After quite a few cool, rainy days, we had a beautiful warm, sunny day.
The day of the lunar eclipse last Monday, I headed to Sunken Meadow State Park to experience it. I wanted to be around other people, and since it was going to last a while it was important to be someplace with bathrooms. lol I got there early...about 1:00, checked out how the sun was positioned, and went down on the beach. To see the sun and moon meant facing away from the Long Island Sound. Since I was early, I started sketching the view in front of me which is the concession stand up on the boardwalk with a few people sitting in chairs. After the eclipse started I decided not to actually sketch
After the eclipse started I decided not to actually sketch the eclipse itself but did do a sketch of a few people watching it happen.
Recently I took a ride out to Southampton. In season the beaches there are nearly impossible to go to unless you are a resident. Mere mortals, like myself, are charged $35 or more to park. Needless to say, I do not go there unless it is off-season even though Cooper's Beach is often on the list of the Top 10 Beaches.
It was windy and cold with a somewhat stormy-looking sky so I sat in my mobile studio up by the few parking spots overlooking the beach itself. From my car I couldn't see down to the beach and the water's edge. It looks like there was a lot of erosion from our winter storms.
I kept my Easter tulips for quite a while. They are fun to sketch when they start drying up and losing their leaves. I wanted to include the entire plant so I sketched it across a double page spread.
The NYC Urban Sketchers met at MoMA's PS-1 in Queens on Saturday. It is a museum featuring very modern art in a restored former school building. Suzala and I checked out a few of the exhibits and the building itself before deciding we would attempt to sketch out on the street in front of the museum. It was cold and windy, but we were bundled up and there were chairs outside to sit on. The view we saw was more interesting than inside the museum itself with the train trestle, buses, cars, and people. Our plan was to sketch outside until we were too cold and then go into the basement boiler room of the building to sketch the wonderful things there.
We lasted for almost 2 hours, until our hands were freezing. We decided we needed some food and went looking for lunch before going back to join the group for show and tell.
Last Friday I finally got together with my sister, Mickey in NJ. We usually plan to do something art related when we get together. It was a cold and windy day so we decided to try sketching some cherry trees from my mobile studio. Unfortunately we couldn't find any that were in a location where I could park the car and have a good view. Instead, we headed over to The Hermitage, a historic house nearby in Ho-Ho-Kus. The architecture sure kept us busy.
