Something Old in a Museum by Joan Tavolott

Here is a sketch that I did recently at the Museum of the American Indian in NYC when I was there with the NYC Urban Sketchers. The museum had some wonderful clothing and artifacts of different indian tribes.

Time Away From Home, NYC by Joan Tavolott

I had a different sketch I was going to post today, but I didn't take a photo of it yet. I will post it later. I wanted to share one of the sketches I did yesterday in NYC with the NYC Urban Sketchers. This was definitely "time away from home." Our group meets every Saturday to sketch somewhere within the city limits. It takes me at least 1 1/2 hrs to get into the city from where I live and usually longer. I don't get to join them every week and it has probably been about a month and a half since I ventured in to meet them. My usual travel buddy couldn't go in yesterday so I decided to make the trip myself. First I drove 1 hour to a place where I could park my car by one of the NYC subway stops, and then I took the subway. What should have been a 45 minute or less subway ride took me another 1 1/2 hrs due to construction work on the subway tracks. I left home at 8am and finally met up with the group at 10:30. It was worth it because we sketched until almost 4pm. It is always fun to get together with a group of like-minded people. It is a fun group of people of assorted ages.

Our location was Carl Schurz Park on 86th St and East End Avenue. Gracie Mansion is in the park and it is the official home of the mayor of NYC. Unfortunately for us the entire mansion grounds has a big high security fence and you couldn't see more than the tippity top of the building. So we didn't get to sketch the mansion. This is the first sketch I did of the day and includes a view of part of the East River as well as the path along the river which was filled with joggers, people with their dogs, people enjoying the sunshine like the lady on the bench on the right who was  stretched out with her bare foot showing, (It wasn't that warm!) and an assortment of characters you would find in any park on a sunny spring day. If you are curious about the other sketches I did yesterday, come visit my blog where you can see how I spent the rest of the day. (www.watercolorsbyjoan2.blogspot.com)