Paper and Threads

Our oldest son's 3 boys spent the weekend with us, and we all went to the Toy Boat Pond.  They wanted to bring their sketchbooks and a variety of crayons and markers, and we all sketched while Grandpa read the newspaper while drinking his coffee.

I always remember the instruction "just paint what you can see," so I painted the Le Pain Quotidien Snack Bar. 

After sketching, we walked around the pond to the Hans Christian Anderson statue which is the site for Story Book reading for children in the Park.  You can see the Patio Café where we sketched on the far side of the pond.  All children LOVE the Ugly Duckling!

A photo taken by my husband of all of us - Charlie, Zach, an adoring Grandma, and Robbie: 

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We love to go the Conservatory Water Café in Central Park on weekend mornings.  It is possible to linger over coffee while drawing, reading, and listening to nearby conversations.  And the view over the boat pond is terrific.  When we arrived last week there were ducks in the pond and a cormorant who was taking deep dives as he swam the length of the pond.

To us, it is always referred to as the Boat Pond, because of the remote control sailboats that can be rented.  Aficianados also race their boats on Saturday mornings, just as the Storytelling session across the pond at the Hans Christian Anderson sculpture begins.

Boat Rental:  Last weekend I sketched the lady in charge of boat rentals as she was checking her phone while waiting for customers for the rental boats and the T-shirts for sale.

There were lots of flowers blooming around the café, and lots of bees on all of them.  I sketched the day lily and then painted it back at our table, trying to capture the brilliant yellow and orange coloration. 

This week I also finally had time to paint the Beach Pickly Rose from photos I took at our June beach vacations.

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An Urban Sketcher from Sydney Australia connected me with a Sydney watercolor artist who was coming to visit New York City and we spent two days together this week.  I'm constantly amazed at the international world of sketchbook art and the friends I meet through Everyday Matters, Urban Sketchers, and my blog.  On Monday Eunice and I met for coffee, and were in the café so long that we ordered and ate lunch!  This is a picture of us following lunch and before we went downtown to buy art supplies.  It was wonderful to meet her and I'm delighted that she will be visiting regularly.

On Wednesday we met for a combined Weekday Urban Sketchers and Battery Park Conservancy Art Day.  Eunice and I sketched Pier A, at the tip of Manhattan overlooking New York Harbor, and while we sketched we watched Navy and Coast Guard vessels arrive for the annual Navy Fleet Week.  Notice the Statue of Liberty, which is on the other side of the harbor, right above the back of this destroyer.

We were freezing while we sketched and had to go into Pier A for hot coffee.  Here is my "as yet" unpainted drawing over New York Harbor.   Pier A is on the left and way in the distance is Governor's Island and the Verrazano Bridge

In the afternoon we moved to the Battery Park South Cove for Figure Al Fresco, the weekly figure drawing session sponsored by the Battery Park Conservancy.  The wind and cold made it unpleasant, so I did only the 1, 5, and 10 minutes sketches.   From left to right - 10 minute, and two five minute sketches done of our model who was sitting or standing on rocks in the South Cove. 

Next Wednesday it is supposed to be in the 80s, so we will meet again under better weather conditions for outdoor sketching. 

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Every May, the fashion world of NYC comes together for the Costume Institute Met gala.  This year the exhibit is China:  Through the Looking Glass.  It is the most extravagant fashion exhibit I've seen there, in part because the exhibit is both in the Costume Institute galleries, and throughout the Asian Galleries.  It took us 2 hours to go through the galleries (even without reading many labels!).  And I did just a few sketches to remember the event.

This is a wonderful Met video of the exhibit. 

http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/china-through-the-looking-glass/video 

Pat, Benedicte, and I also went to MoMA to see the new Warhol exhibit, and to attend the first of many sessions about Warhol's Materials and Methods -something they are calling Warhol's Pop-Up events.  A museum art educator discussed Warhol's career and led us through 2 exercises.  In the first, we used one of his iconic shapes and created a new product/brand/logo.  I created a shopping bag, with an extravagant hat on it, for my store called "To the Races."  I imagined a shop for hats to be worn to the Kentucky Derby and Ascot. 

For  the 2nd exercise, we were given stacks of ads from the 1950s-1960s (I think) and a light box, and asked to trace images from these ads to create a new ad.  I just collected women's faces and made it an ad for Lifesavers - a hint at the rise of feminism during that time. 

Warhol is not an artist I admire.  I keep looking for evidence that he did more than transform work by others.  But it is always fun to work with the MoMA educators and I probably will sample one session from each of the 4 who will be leading these sessions in the next few months to see how they differ.  

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There is a free, outdoor Figure Drawing session in Battery Park City at the tip of Manhattan every Wednesday afternoon from May through October.  Yesterday was the first session, and many of the artists, and the model, were old friends.

The model is Donna - an incredible, colorfully dressed, experienced model.  I prefer the younger models who are dressed in tank tops and leggings so I can draw their full posture, but yesterday Donna was dressed in so many layers and colors that I had to pull out my watercolors for the longer poses.

This is the 5 minute sketch - in graphite.

There were also two 10 minute sketches and one 30 minute sketch, which I did in graphite and then added paint.  But I missed the lines after painting, and brought them home and added India ink lines with my flexible nib over the watercolor.  Over and over I find that line is the most important element for me in art.  I prefer drawings to paintings, and ink and watercolor to any other paint medium.  And among oil paintings, I gravitate to the paintings with definite black lines in the paintings, like Matisse and Beckmann to name a few of my favorite artists.

For this 30 minute pose Donna added yet one more scarf, a deeper auburn color over her bright pink one.  Her dress was a multicolor print and I simplified it to only capture the colors. 

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