A Midsummer Night's Dream in Rowayton

Sunday, June 28, 2009

At long last, the Perpetual Rain Machine let up and we were able to go see this year's Shakespeare on the Sound performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in Rowayton's Pinkney Park. It was a very entertaining performance -- the actors seemed well cast and the music by Stew was very cool. Looks like the new artistic director is already making her mark! The raked stage definitely brought the actors closer to the audience, though our vantage point wasn't the best for scenes that took place under the trees. I sketched the stage and audience while we waited for the play to begin, and then quickly drew impressions of the various characters as they danced, crawled and shimmied through their parts.
























































Vacant Building, South End

Saturday, June 27, 2009

There are several vacant buildings in Stamford's South End -- long abandoned former factories and such. I've been wanting to sketch them before they're all razed for the new Fairway-and-condo complex, and I finally went out this morning to do it. Instead of my usual Moleskine, I tried out a sample pad of Bristol board. Surprisingly it takes watercolor quite well.























(Lamy Safari w/ Noodler's Lexington Gray ink and waterclors on Strathmore 300 Series smooth Bristol.)

Music to keep the Hudson clean: Clearwater Festival

Monday, June 22, 2009

It's been raining pretty much every day here for the past several weeks, so we were a little apprehensive about going to the Clearwater Festival in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., yesterday. It's an annual extravaganza to preserve the Hudson River, headlined this year by Pete Seeger, Jay Ungar, Arlo Guthrie, and Taj Mahal, among others. But we went anyway, and the sun did come out, at least for short periods of time, so it wasn't a complete washout. The sudden showers did prove to be a challenge, however, for sketching -- it was a race against time to complete a drawing before the large, splashy drops began, announcing the next downpour.
I took along my large Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, which I haven't used a lot lately, and I wasn't too pleased with the way watercolors handled on it -- odd, I know, because presumably it's exactly the same paper as in the smaller version, which I use all the time.











































































(Lamy Safari w/ Noodler's Lexington Gray ink and watercolor in large Moleskine watercolor sketchbook; last one done with Pentel brush pen and colored with Faber-Castell Pitt artists' pens.)

A peek at Green-Wood Cemetery

Thursday, June 18, 2009

I'd always wanted to visit Green-Wood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, and got an excuse to do so on Saturday. We had a quick, surreptitious picnic on the grounds with friends and then walked about for a bit afterward since it wasn't raining just yet. Green-Wood is the resting place of such notables as Leonard Bernstein, Boss Tweed, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Louis Comfort Tiffany. It's vast (478 acres) -- would love to go back there sometime to explore it more thoroughly.


















(Lamy Safari with Noodler's ink in Lexington Grey; watercolor added later.)

Sun and Sand in St. Thomas, USVI

Monday, June 08, 2009

Just got back from a long weekend visiting friends in St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands). Did a lot of snorkeling, but had time to do a few quick sketches. Here's one of Hull Bay (yes, the water really is as turquoise as it looks in brochures):


















And one that I drew while waiting for lunch to be served at a waterfront restaurant in Charlotte Amalie:

















Here are some people relaxing at a picnic table at Magens Bay -- often thought to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.















(Lamy Safari with Noodler's ink in Lexington Grey and watercolors in Holbein Multi-Drawing sketchbook.)