NYC Urban Sketching – Saturday June 22, 2013

Brooklyn’s Green Wood Cemetery –   

I’ll admit this might seem like a strange place for sketching, but when you read about it below I think you’ll agree this could be fantastic

     Green Wood a National Historic Landmark was the 2nd most visited tourist attraction in the USA in the 19th century.  In 2013 it’s ranked #2 of 98 attractions in Brooklyn by Trip Advisor.  It's celebrating its 175 anniversary.    

     Green-Wood is 478 spectacular acres of hills, valleys, glacial ponds and paths, throughout which exists one of the largest outdoor collections of 19th- and 20th-century statuary and mausoleums. Green Wood is filled with century-and-a-half-old trees providing a peaceful oasis to visitors, as well as its 560,000 permanent residents, including Leonard Bernstein, Boss Tweed, Charles Ebbets, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Horace Greeley, Civil War generals, baseball legends, politicians, artists, entertainers and inventors.

     A magnet for history buffs and bird watchers.  Green-Wood is also a Revolutionary War historic site - the Battle of Long Island was fought in 1776 across what are now its grounds.       

     Founded in 1838 Green-Wood Cemetery soon developed an international reputation for its magnificent beauty.  By 1860, Green-Wood was rivaling Niagara Falls as the country’s greatest tourist attraction.  Green-Wood’s popularity helped inspire the creation of public parks, including New York City’s Central and Prospect Parks.

By Subway:  Easily accessible by subway, the R train to Brooklyn’s, 25 St Station, walk up 1 block.  (see map)

By Car:  25 St & 5th Ave, Brooklyn - Free parking is available anywhere inside the High Gothic Victorian Main Gate  (which was created by the same people who created Trinity Church on Wall St)

• We’ll meet at 10 AM. 

• Call my cell phone 973-809-9128 if you can’t find us.

Battery Park Figure al Fresco - June 12

Hi.  My name's Patricia.  I joined the group a while ago but all the sketching outings are on Saturdays and that's the one day I work.  Oh well.  I'll join all of you to sketch one of these days.   Let me know if any weekday sketching opportunities come up.  I'm going to be posting here occasionally.  I sketch on my iPad mainly.  Mostly.  These appear on my blog over at reclinerart.posterous.com.  I'm trying to navigate my way around blogger right now so I don't really know if things are going to work or not.  Fingers crossed.  I figured this was an easy post to experiment with.  I have two more recent "outings" to share with you but I think I'll wait for tomorrow.  

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Remember I told you all that I went downtown last Wednesday for the Figure al Fresco offered by the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy?

Well, here are the "proper" drawings of the "official" model and not my  Mental Meandering and Frantic Recording of Whatever Crossed My Path Because I have A New App And It Is Nothing But FUN FUN FUN.

She was Very Flexible.
Hmm.  I guess I mislabeled the next one.  Looks like it should be 5 minutes instead of 10.  Too much frenzy to pay attention.

I blame any and all Wonkiness on her flexibility.  Even my own wonkiness that led me to believe this was a vertical standing up drawing, until I really looked at it, i.e., held it up to a mirror and saw something was seriously wrong.  I know.  Things are still wrong.

 As a non-flex person I get thrown off kilter when in the presence of one.

Sketch Club app, Pogo Sketch stylus.

(full disclosure:  I added the color at home.  Since she was wearing beige clothing and I'm not a beige artist I used artistic license.  The purple mat is true.)

NYC Urban Sketching – June 15, 2013

What a great day to be out sketching.  The weather was perfect.  We started the day at a small park by the Hudson River about a block south of the Intrepid Air and Space Museum.  It was also the spot where people lined up for the Circle Line ferry tours around the island of Manhattan.  I drew both.

An Aircraft Carrier is one huge physical presence.  All human activity is dwarfed by the sheer size of the ship.

USS Intrepid (CV/CVA/CVS-11), also known as The Fighting "I",
is one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers
built during World War II for the United States Navy

One of my favorite things is sketching people waiting in lines.  Here are the people waiting in line to sail around New York.

Next we walked cross-town picking up lunch for a picnic out of doors.  It was World Wide Knit in Public Day in Bryant Park, sponsored by one of New York’s premier knitting stores – Knitty City.  The park was filled with people as passionate about knitting as we are about sketching.  The perfect tribute was to sketch the knitters.

My original thought was that the knitters would be easy to sketch because they don’t move around a lot.  Not true for Knit in Public Day where the knitters were all moving around socializing.

This sketch includes two woman wearing great hats.  The one in the striped hat is Pearl who is one of the owners of Knitty City.  The other is Lisa Daehlin a singer and knit designer.

NYC Urban Sketchers - Saturday June 15, 2013

The weather is supposed to be beautiful.  We have an interesting three part day planned.  It should provide interesting sites to draw and good socializing.

Part 1:  We meet at the Hudson River Greenway at 44^th Street at 10 AM.  There is a small park on the far side of 12^th Avenue that should provide great views of the river and the Intrepid Sea Air and Space Museum.

Part 2:  We leave at 12:30 and head cross-town for a picnic in Bryant Park.  Bring your own food or buy on the way.  As you enter the park from the 41 Street entrance on Avenue of the Americas we’ll be on the right side in the shaded area by the lawn.  The public chairs can be moved where you want.  We’ll either be seated in the shaded area or on the nearby grass.

Part 3:  The Big Apple Knitter's Guild is holding a Knit in Public Day starting at 2:30.  The beauty of sketching knitters is that they sit patiently and hardly move – ideal for perfecting your people drawing skills.

Call if you can’t find us.  Mark – 973-872-6777, or Richard - 917-224-8373

I went into the city today to join the group at Highline Park. On the subway ride in I did a quick pencil sketch of a commuter.

Highline Park in Chelsea had a lot of great spots to sketch. It is raised above the neighborhood so there are views of the buildings and streets as well as the river views. I was able to get quite a few sketches done even with the crowds of people passing by.

At one point we came across some kind of film being shot.

I don't know what it was but the characters had their faces painted white and black.

In the same area I did a sketch of one of the outdoor restaurants.

And views of some of the buildings and people.

Here are a few photos of the day.

On the subway ride back I sketch a few of the ladies across from me.

Lakeview Cemetery & Fire Island Lighthouse

I belong to the Patchogue Sketch Club which meets every Wednesday evening to go some place local to sketch for a while. Lately we've been doing mostly water scenes, but this week we went to a local cemetery. There were some interesting views of the old tombstones.

Then yesterday I drove over to Robert Moses State Park where the Fire Island Lighthouse is located. 

This area was hit pretty hard by Hurricane Sandy and just reopened to the public. Most of the road needed to be replaced (which they have done), but most of the dunes were lost and those have not yet been restored. Last year if you sat on the beach you could only see the top of the lighthouse.

Now there is a clear, complete view of it because the dunes are gone or were flattened.

It was great for me because I could sit in my beach chair and sketch,

but bad for the lighthouse itself. It is a dangerous situation.

NYC Urban Sketchers - Saturday June 8th

The Aerial Greenway 

What’s  395 acres, one a half miles long  - and 45 feet wide?  

It’s the aerial greenway known as New York’s Highline Park.  The potential for a little rain can’t stop us because there are indoor areas and loads of great restaurants we can visit.  In my experience The Highline  is the most ask-for NYC location from our out-of-town USk visitors.

We’ll meet at 10 AM at the Highline entrance which is located at Gansevoort Street between 10th and 11th Avenue. It’s about a six minute walk - three blocks south of 14th and one and half blocks west. 

The closest subway is the 8th Avenue - 14th Street stop for the A, C, E or L.

Call if you can’t find us:   973-809-9128