Paper and Threads

I was meeting the Urban Sketchers Group in Bryant Park, behind the New York City Public Library.  When I arrived, there was a photo shoot in the middle of the lawn, which we assume is a publicity shot for the upcoming revival of On The Town.

When I arrived at our meeting spot, I met Valentina, from Palermo, Sicily - someone who just looked up the NYC USK group and showed up!  I love that the International Urban Sketchers Group provides this level of communication worldwide between artists.  Valentina is the artist on the right.

I am using a new accordion watercolor book - with a cover of paste paper that I made last winter.

I used this for painting the Planetarium from the outside, last Thursday, at the American Museum of Natural History, and for several paintings this week when Urban Sketchers met in Bryant Park. 

Planetarium

These paintings, the Southwest Porch Patio, and the Fountain are from Bryant Park. 

As I was leaving Bryant Park I took a photo of another fascinating NYC site.   Any ideas??

Posted by Shirley at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

We spent this past weekend in Minneapolis, Minnesota for a very special wedding.  And I actually made time to sketch in my daily watercolor sketchbook and finished 5 pages in 3 days.  I haven't done an airport - waiting plane drawing in a very long time - but I had a few minutes to spare.

There was a beautiful flower arrangement in the area around the elevator, so I sat for a few minutes - long enough for a quick sketch and painting on our way out Saturday morning. 

On Sunday we had a few hours before we had to leave for the airport and were with our wonderful friends Jeff and Sara.  Sara and I sketch at the beach each summer, so we voted for a walk and some sketching while our husbands talked.  We walked down Nicolette Mall and chose this huge fountain sculpture called Minnesota Birds.  I only could fit the heron and grouse on my page.  The Loon was on the other side, and only a few tail feathers were visible from our angle. 

I gave Sara a choice of a few Tombow water-soluble markers and taught her the continuous line (or almost continuous line drawing) with watercolor washes that Brenda Swenson gave us for homework in Sketchbook Skool Semester 2.  Here is my wonky lamp post with hanging baskets of flowers.

With an extra few minutes right before we had to leave, I sketched the man sitting in front of me on the wall around the sculpture. 

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I love to make special travel sketchbooks for our vacations, recycling old books about the location.  I found a $2.00 damaged book of Eugene Atget photographs at the Strand bookstore in New York City.  By carefully clipping the old binding threads, I was able to preserve some of the folios, using two of them for my end papers and inserting two others amidst the watercolor paper.

The book is 8 1/4 x 8 1/4 inches, a perfect size for my purse or backpack.  I filled it with Fabriano Artistica 140 lb soft press watercolor paper, with some irregularly-sized pages for fun.  

Front Cover:

Front End Paper:

Back End Paper: 

I sketched an Eiffel Tower that I will place on the title page - and then make a grid for  a daily small image, a calendar for daily events, and a map showing the location of our rented apartment.

Several years ago I posted a 3 part  tutorial for recycling an old or damaged book as a travel sketchbook.   The book was called Italian Dreams and I made it for a trip to Venice and can be seen here.

  http://www.paperandthreads.com/2012/02/watercolor_sketchbook_tutorial.php 

Posted by Shirley at 8:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The Weekday Urban Sketchers in New York met at Union Square last week and I painted on the back side of my accordion watercolor sketchbook  I enjoyed using this book so much that I made another one today!

This is the full spread from Union Square on the back side of the accordion panels.

Here are the individual paintings:

Vegetables and flowers from the Farmer's Market.

A chair, umbrella, and sign from Pavillion - an open restaurant at the north end of Union Square.

The Entrance to the Subway Station and a young woman burning incense and selling crystals and other spiritual items. 

This group will now meet on Thursdays - from 11-3 - at various venues around New York City.  Anyone who is interested in joining the group can follow the Urban Sketchers NY Blog to learn about the weekly site.   

Posted by Shirley at 7:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)