Paper and Threads

Although the Meet-up Group usually sketches in Central Park during the non-winter months, this past Saturday we sketched at Bryant Park which is located behind the New York Public Library.  It was a beautiful day and the Park was full.  We sketched in 3 separate areas in the Park and shared our sketchbooks at the end of each.  Here are my 3 watercolor journal pages from the afternoon.  This is the fountain on the west side of the Park.

There are umbrellas, chairs, and lamposts everywhere!

These were the flowers blooming in the big planters that were scattered all around the Park.

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I spent the day yesterday, with my art buddies Pat and Benedicte, at the Central Park Zoo.  It was a beautiful, but hot day, and every school class in the City was there for a field trip!  I love sketching at the zoo - it is a real test of how fast you can achieve an image of some type.  I sketch in pencil and then take a photo so I know how to paint the animal when I get home.  These are the first 4 pages (out of 6) that I painted.

Gentoo and Chinstrap Penguins

King Penguin - These are new penguins in the exhibit and they are bigger than the others.

Three Scarlet Ibis:

Tortoise and Hornbill

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 Only one more day in May to post a daily sketchbook page! 

Yesterday my husband and I went to the Museum of Modern Art early to see the current Henri Cartier Bresson photography show and the Picasso print exhibit.  This is the 3rd HCB exhibit I've seen and it was by far the largest - and included photos from many of his photojournalist articles in major publications.  I really like his photographs, probably because they are such quick snapshots in the lives of people around the world.

The Picasso exhibit has a few of the same prints that are in the big Picasso exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - but I never get tired of seeing his drawings, prints, and linocuts.  I remain fascinated with his ability to capture so much in so few lines and sketched his drawing of Francoise Gilot - I think hoping that I will achieve his skill through repitition!  I still have to draw quickly in pencil before using the dreaded Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.  My added color is from a Neocolor II crayon.

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The Whitney Museum was open around the clock for 3 days as their Biennial Exhibit draws to a close.  It is usually very conceptual and not very interesting, but my friend Istar convinced me that this year there was art that would inspire both of us.  So we went early yesterday morning and I really enjoyed seeing some of the work and I brought home a few ideas about things I'd like to try.  This is the journal page on which I took some notes.

There was one large room filled with only large ink paintings by Charles Ray.  Each one was of flowers - that were very similar - but with variations on the compositions from painting to painting.  There were many, many flowers in each painting- arranged beautifully.  The colors were brilliant - and the flowers with the long petals, each a different bright color, flip-floping back and forth over each other, were my favorites.  My journal flower sketches were each done in less than a minute - just enough for me to remember a few of the variations in his flowers.  

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Last night I went to Figure Drawing at the Society of Illustrators in New York City.  I think some of the people that I see there regularly go twice each week.  I'd love to go twice each month, but will probably never go more frequently than that.  This time I took my 9B woodless pencil and stumper that I played with when I was reading Bill Rankin's Fast Sketching Techniques book and loved using them for the longer poses.  Here is one page for 2 min, 5 min, 10 min, and 20 minute poses.  My new sketchbook is slightly bigger than my scanner and the person sitting next to me created charcoal dust periodically that drifted onto my page - so I cleaned them up as well as possible.

Two Minute Poses for each Model (2 of 20):  

Five Minute Pose (1 of 4):

Ten Minute Pose (1 of 2):

Twenty Minute Pose (1 of 3):

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