Señor Taco

 Certain places somehow get my attention like Señor Taco in Holbrook. I haven't eaten here but seeing the number of people going in to pick up orders while I sketched, I may have to try it.

Fire Island View

Since it was nice over the weekend I headed over to the beach. I decided it would be too windy at the ocean so I went to Captree State Park which is across on the other side of the bay. It was even windy there so I sat in my mobile studio to sketch this view of the Fire Island Lighthouse.

SATURDAY: Sketch Cappadocia

 

I'M NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE
I’ve heard of Cappadocia, but if pressed I’d probably have guessed wrong about what country it’s in.  I might have even gotten the continent wrong.  It’s one of those places.  If you’ve been there you probably have hundreds of incredible memories.  I’m not one of those people.  So when Cecelia and Shawne suggested Cappadocia as a virtual sketch event it sounded like a good idea, but I really didn't know.

Wow.  Cecilia sent some photos and my eyes were opened.  It’s an incredibly beautiful place and also an incredibly ancient one.  Homer wrote the story of the Iliad about the war of the Greeks against the Trojans.  It took place in prehistory about 500 miles from Cappadocia.  We’re not even sure Homer existed and many people doubted that Troy even existed, until archeologists discovered the ruins, … and more.  That ancient city - Troy was built on top of an even older city, and that one rested on top of another city even older.  In total, Homer’s city of Troy sat on top of the ruins of 9 older cities that had been destroyed or abandoned.  Modern people have lived in this area for as long as there have been modern people.

CAPPADOCIA
Cappadocia is a part of central Turkey. Eruptions of several volcanoes (e.g. Erciyes Dag, Hasan Dag) covered the area with tuff (soft volcanic rock). Erosion dug valleys and created an uncountable number of different shaped rock formations. The tuff's ability to store water made the valleys much more fertile than the higher surroundings.

The first people to arrive dug caves into the soft stone. In time they developed the ability to dig cities into the underground with tunnels of several kilometers. A sophisticated pipe- and tunnel-system carried fresh air and water, and enabled the people to hide from enemies for long periods.

In the 5th century hermits started to settle in the valleys and to paint their caves. In the next centuries more and more hermits and monks arrived and a rich cave-architecture with colorful wall paintings developed. 

AM vs. PM

We will be spending our morning, sketching Cappadocia.  In the afternoon our focus will shift to the architecture and domes of Turkey  (The Ortaköy Mosque and Hagia Sophia )

Cecilia, once again has created a special website for our adventure.  

It includes remarkable photos and excellent links for you to explore.  You can start planning your sketching adventure now: 

https://605fc5152810e.site123.me/

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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• You need to register to participate.  
• Click here:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/saturday-sketch-cappadocia-tickets-148828902253
• The virtual sketching event will be this Saturday and starts at 10 AM ET
• Registration closes on Friday at noon ET.
• On Friday afternoon if you registered you will receive the login info you’ll need to participate.

There are no fees. All drawing skill levels are welcome

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A REMINDER

There is no scheduled NYC Urban Sketching event planned for this weekend - March 27, 2021.

Our next planned event will be the following Saturday when we will have a sketching adventure in Cappadocia.  You'll love the stunning visuals.   

See you then, and keep sketching!

E-X-P-A-N-D YOUR UNIVERSE

 

Have you ever used an accordion sketchbook?  It is fun!  Start on one end and move along using one element to carry you picture through to the next section of the book.  You will wind up with a wonderful panorama of your city, backyard or apartment.  They are particularly good for doing expansive city scapes.    Try getting over to Roosevelt Island for a great view of the east side of Manhattan or to the Jersey City waterfront for a view of lower Manhattan across the Hudson River. 

Suhita Shirodkar recently used one to capture the spring landscape near her home  in California: https://sketchaway.wordpress.com/2021/03/17/spring-in-california/

Ive used it a number of times.  Once as a wedding gift where I recorded various scenes of the wedding weekend using an element on part of the page to carry through to the next part of the "story".  

And,  following one of our themes, drawing hands and feet during lockdown. 

The books are readily available through  any art supple outlet: here is one  rom Hanemuhle at Blick that is only 2"x2" 

https://www.dickblick.com/products/hahnemuhle-the-zigzag-book/?clickTracking=true&wmcp=pla&wmcid=items&wmckw=13872-1197&utm_source=criteo&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=lowerfunnel

BUT they are extremely easy to make by folding a piece of paper back and forth.  You can join strips of paper and even add a cardboard cover.  Little effort for a big payoff. 

Here are some How To sites:

•  Accordion Fold Books Posted on January 18, 2021 by  Suhita Shirodkar https://sketchaway.wordpress.com/2021/01/18/accordion-fold-books/         

            Here's a little project, an accordion book full of little sketches while on walks in the neighborhood.

• How to Make an Accordion Book by Dena McMurdie  https://www.readbrightly.com/diy-accordion-book/                                                                         

           Fill the pages with your sketches. Accordion books make for great displays! Then stand them up and view all the pages at once!

SATURDAY: Sketch the Beauty and the Sorrow of Burma

 

Lately it seems there is a news story every day about the troubles in Myanmar.  We see and read stories about the military brutalizing the citizens of this beautiful country.  Myanmar?  What happened to Burma?  Are they the same country?  And what about their leader - Aung San Suu Kyi,  the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate?  After spending 15 years under house arrest, wasn’t she elected President?  What happened?

Myanmar, is a country in Southeast Asia. Myanmar, bordered by Bangladesh and India to its northwest, China to its northeast, Laos and Thailand to its east and southeast, and the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal to its south and southwest.  The ancient Indians referred to it as the “Golden Land”.   Looking at photographs of the stunning beauty it’s easy to see why.  

Back in 1989 the official English name was changed by the country's government from the "Union of Burma" to the "Union of Myanmar", and still later to the "Republic of the Union of Myanmar". Since then, those name changes have been the subject of endless controversies.

Win Naing has prepared fascinating sketching tour of his homeland, focusing on three cities:

Mandalay
Win’s birthplace.  Mandalay is the second largest city in Myanmar. It was the Royal capital in the 19th century.  Google Streetview has not fully mapped the city but important keywords to search include:

• Mandalay palace
• U bein Bridge
• Kuthodaw Pagoda
• Mandalay Hill
• Maha Myat Muni Pagoda
• Zaygyo Market Mandalay
• Mingun
• Sagaing Hills
• Sagaing Bridge
• Ayeyarwaddy / Irrawaddy River

Old Bagan
There are literally thousands and thousands of pagoda all over the city.  “Bagan is an ancient city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar. From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Pagan Kingdom, the first kingdom that unified the regions that would later constitute Myanmar.”  Here are some clickable links you can use:

• Ananda Temple

• Bupaya Pagoda

• Dhammayangyi Temple

• Gawdawpalin Temple

• Thatbyinnyu Temple

​

Yangon (aka Rangoon)
Largest city in Burma was the capital until 2006 when the military junta purpose built the administrative capital city of Naypyidaw. Rangoon has the largest number of colonial-era buildings in Southeast Asia.

• Shwedagon Pagoda
• Strand Road Yangon
• Karaweik at Kandawgyi Lake
• Sule Pagoda
• Yangon High Court
• Mahabandula Garden
• Yangon City Hall (interesting architecture)
• Yangon Railway Station (interesting architecture)
• Streets in Yangon

What is happening now?
There are lots of scenes you can sketch showing the protests in the streets after the military coup on 1 February 2021.

• 2 minute video:  Why Is The World Ignoring Myanmar?  https://youtu.be/ckwWz9mBP1U
• Other YouTube Videos
• Sketch below by Win showing street protester shot by the military junta

​

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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• You need to register to participate.  
• Click here:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/saturday-sketch-the-beauty-and-the-sorrow-of-burma-tickets-146613124803
• The virtual sketching event will be this Saturday and starts at 10 AM ET
• Registration closes on Friday at noon ET.
• On Friday afternoon if you registered you will receive the login info you’ll need to participate.

There are no fees. All drawing skill levels are welcome

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SATURDAY: Put Her on a Pedestal

NYC is filled with statues honoring men.  However, when you try to find statues of women there are almost none.  There are a few allegorical images and a few that are fictional characters, but at the beginning of the pandemic there were only five statues that honored real women.  They are:   Joan of Arc, Golda Meir, Gertrude Stein, Eleanor Roosevelt and Harriet Tubman.  

Then, very quietly this past summer, in the middle of the Covid crisis a new statue was unveiled in Central Park honoring Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton together on a single pedestal.  Nice, but really only a small addition.  This is something we, as artists can address.  

Select a woman you'd like to be honored by a statue in NYC.   Find images and consider where you would like your proposed statue to be located.  
Your finished piece will show the woman you selected as a finished statue - shown in the public location of your choice.

• For the Morning:  Select an historical figure, a woman who once lived but is no longer alive.
• For the Afternoon:   Select a living woman to honor with a statue.

To inspire you take a virtual walking tour created by the Central Park Conservancy that highlights five of the existing statues:

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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

You need to register to participate.  

Click here:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/saturday-put-her-on-a-pedestal-tickets-145316193647

The virtual sketching event will be this Saturday and starts at 10 AM ET

Registration closes on Friday at noon ET.

On Friday afternoon if you registered you will receive the login info you’ll need to participate. 

There are no fees. All drawing skill levels are welcome

Weekly Theme: "Channel Your Inner Child" (The Sketcher Way)

Sketch by Kathy O. Dowden

Thank you to Marianne Milzoff for suggesting this theme.

We have yet to draw and paint children.  Challenges of doing so include rendering accurate body proportion, movement and relative absence of lines that are indigenous to youth.  This week's theme asks you to find a picture of yourself as a child and sketch it.  Have some fun revisiting yourself from years ago.  Not up for drawing yourself?  No problem, borrow the image of another child in your life. Or, be abstract, create the energy of a child as you see it, activity, color, surroundings, symbols, etc.

Sketch by Emily Schmidt

"Notice that when you draw kids, facial features are very soft so go easy on the line work" is a tip suggested by Gaby Companario from the book "The Urban Sketchers Art Pack, A Guide Book and Sketch Pad for Drawing on Location Around the World," written by Stephanie Bower, Gabriel Campanario and Veronica Lawlor.

 
Please share your work on https://www.facebook.com/groups/nycurbansketchers and remember to label your work as NUS (not an urban sketch), unless, of course, you are sketching from direct observation.

Sketch by Suzanne Cleary

For some ideas and inspiration:
Inner Child Drawings
https://intuitivecreativity.typepad.com/expressiveartinspirations/2011/07/inner-child-drawings.html
Inner child drawings are a profound way to access aspects of your psyche that you may not normally pay attention to.

Childhood Captured in Art 

https://artsandculture.google.com/usergallery/childhood-captured-in-art/WwKSmGQVz19GIw?hl=en
This user gallery focuses on artwork that contains children and the essence of childhood. Childhood is a magical experience that we have all had the blessing to enjoy and art does a wonderful job of portraying its memories. Everyone can relate to childhood innocents and this gallery can help recount or narrate those joyous and not so joyous memories. Capturing childhood in a picture is very important in art, and this gallery helps show how youthfulness is seen in art.

Children in Art | National Galleries of Scotland
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/features/children-art
This feature looks at some of the images in the collection that focus on children. The representation of children in western art has varied greatly over the centuries. From traditional portraiture and imagined scenes of play, to images of loss and hardship, see how at how artists have portrayed children and the notion of childhood at different periods of time.

Grand Central Terminal Expo is UP!!

Come one! Come All! Come to see The work of the NYC Urban Sketchers mounted in an explosion in Grand Central Terminal.   The pictures are exhibited on the temporary walls constructed in the main hall and some hallways.   The exhibit will be up until the walls come down in the late spring/early summer.

SATURDAY: The Paris - NYC Sketch Event

 

USk Paris and NYC are partnering 

to bring you an Urban Sketchers Treasure Hunt

Thanks to our hosts Frederique Fleisch (Paris) and Lois Bender (NYC) for planning and designing this event

*  PLEASE NOTE:  You will need to register for the morning and the afternoon parts separately. 

Let’s Be Tourists Again!
Have Breakfast in New York (10 AM) and Les Aperos (Aperitifs) in Paris (4pm)

We're trading cities for a day as we visit the many  “Statues of Liberty!” 

The Statue of Liberty officially celebrated her 125th birthday on October 28, 2011. The people of France gave the Statue to the people of the United States over one hundred years ago in recognition of the friendship established during the American Revolution. Over the years, the Statue of Liberty’s meaning has grown to include freedom and democracy as well as this international friendship.

Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi was commissioned to design a sculpture with the year 1876 in mind for completion, to commemorate the centennial of the American
Declaration of Independence.  Bartholdi required the assistance of an engineer to address structural issues associated with designing such a colossal copper sculpture. Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel (designer of the Eiffel Tower), was commissioned to design the massive iron pylon and secondary skeletal framework which allows the Statue’s copper skin to move independently yet stand upright.

Old pictures and the history of the construction of Lady Liberty
http://thestatueofliberty.com/history/

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For the New York City Team
There are six different copies of the Statue of Liberty in Paris.  You are invited to sketch some or all of them.  Give your sketches a Parisian context.

•  Sketch the statue by the river Seine with the Eiffel Tower in the background:

Statue de la Liberté sur l’Ile aux Cygnes: Metro stop at rer c, station Champs de Mars :

 https://images.app.goo.gl/wGYnPLXBvVvM8D9c8

• The Five Parisian Statues of Liberty:   https://www.parisladouce.com/2014/05/paris-les-cinq-statues-de-la-liberte_11.html

•  Or, sketch the statue of liberty at the Jardin du Luxembourg!   

Statue liberté au Jardin du Luxembourg: Metro stop at rer Luxembourg:

https://images.app.goo.gl/GM8V6WnrhAXnV6YLA

•  Here are all the places where you can find the statue of liberty in Paris:  

Swan Island, The Luxembourg Garden, at the Musée d'Orsay at the Museum of Arts and Crafts (2 statues), Place Michel Debre,

   https://www.pariszigzag.fr/secret/lieux-insolites/ou-se-cachent-les-six-statues-de-la-liberte-parisiennes

•  Sketch the hidden statue

La sculpture Centaure by Cesar cache une mini sculpture de la statue de la liberté:  Metro stop Saint Sulpice :

https://www.parisladouce.com/2014/11/paris-le-centaure-de-cesar-place-michel.html?m=1

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The ParisianTeam 

 The Parisians will be sketching NYC’s Statues of Liberty 

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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• You need to register here to participate:  
• For Part 1:   https://www.eventbrite.com/e/saturday-the-paris-nyc-sketch-event-tickets-143826429723
• For Part 2:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/saturday-the-paris-nyc-sketch-event-part-2-tickets-143830726575
• To participate in both sessions you need to register for the morning and the afternoon events.
• The virtual sketching event will be this Saturday and starts at 10 AM ET for Part 1
• The Afternoon portion begins at 1 PM ET (Part 2)
• Registration closes on Friday at noon.
• On Friday afternoon if you registered you will receive the login info you’ll need to participate in separate emails - one for Part 1 and another for Part 2.

There are no fees. All drawing skill levels are welcome

NYC USk - 2021 Workshop - Procreate

 

NYC Urban Sketchers 

Workshops 2021

An introduction to the drawing app Procreate. 

Learn how to use all the basic tools to create art in a new way.

Sunday, March 14, 2021

10am EST

In this workshop, you will learn how to draw digitally using the app Procreate. 

Subjects covered will range from the basic functions of Procreate to, editing features and shortcuts that will make the flow of your creations even easier. This 2 hour course is for beginners who are overwhelmed by all that the app has to offer. Danna will explain everything in an easy, understanding way that will soon become second nature. By the end of the class, you will feel confident enough to take your ipad out on your next urban sketching adventure!

*Students must have a fully charged iPad, have already installed the app Procreate on it and while it’s best to have an Apple Pencil it is not a necessity . Students should also have experience using the Zoom app and a separate device to zoom on if you’d like to use the iPad along with me as I instruct.

There is a $35 fee for this two hour workshop payable at registration.  

To register - click here:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nyc-urban-sketchers-workshops-2021-tickets-143833484825