Monteriggioni

Here's another watercolor painting of the beautiful fortress of Monteriggioni. One of my favorite places to paint in Italy.


-R

Aphrodite at the Met

I got to spend some time with my favorite sculpture at the Met, the Aphrodite. It's a Roman copy of a Greek original. It was done 1st-2nd century BCE. I met up with two great friends, who are both very talented artists as well, Min and Maria. We had an excellent day drawing, looking at and speaking about art.


-R

The actual painting from Cedarmere

So I posted a photo of me painting in Cedarmere, but here is the actual piece. I must admit this was a difficult painting, the light was very strong only in one spot. I was basically under a huge tree so I was painting in the dark. I tried to paint with as much accuracy in color as possible, and in the end I think it was a successful painting. I'll try to go back and paint on the Cedarmere property again before the weather gets bad.

-R

Doing some painting on William Cullen Bryant's property.

I went to paint with a few friends today, we decided to head east to the Nassau County Museum of Art. After painting the museum building we searched for another spot where we could paint. This is one of the nice little places, on what used to be the property of William Cullen Bryant, not far from the NCMA. It was getting dark, but I pushed through as fast as I could. Here is an "action" shot.

-R

A house in Valley Stream

Painting a little in my neighborhood.


-R

A visit to the Met

I did a little drawing at the Met the other day. The crouching Aphrodite and Heracles seated. Both Roman copies of Greek originals. Very fun to draw, I want to make regulate visits to museums for sketching. We'll see how it goes.


-R

Astoria Park, NY

I'm back in NY now and the weather is amazing. I wanted to go to one of my favorite places and do some painting. I met up with my friend and fellow painter John Hendrick and we headed to Astoria park. This park is in a nice neighborhood, it has a great view of Manhattan and two famous NY bridges run across it; the Triboro and Hell Gate bridge.
I brought my watercolors, and a light travel easel and I set up for a painting. I started out as I usually do, with a sketch in pencil of what I'm going to paint. Like I mentioned in the last post, in this drawing I'm trying to organize the composition as well as make notes about shading and I try to draw the architecture somewhat accurately.

After this preliminary drawing I redraw the scene following the schema from the first sketch. I tighten the drawing up where I think it should be, and in some areas I don't even bother drawing at all. For example the architecture of the Hell Gate bridge itself  I did in much more detail than everything else, the trees underneath I didn't even draw in. I wanted to just paint the trees without having them be so preconceived. I think it's good to balance between following your line drawing and just letting colors mix in a little. So after a lot of catching up and chatting with my friend I finally finished my sketch. 

I think it's obvious that I followed my first drawing almost exactly and I like doing that because I think the second time around I can really build the architecture better. I try to correct my perspective mistakes and small kinks before I dive into painting. Of course this was more of a long sketch, but in an actual painting I would be doing the same, except of course I'd be dedicating much more time to it. 

All in all it was an excellent day, we did one more painting at the park and then headed to Fort Totten park where we ran into some rain. We both enjoyed the sun while it lasted and I'm sure this won't be the last time John joins me for some plein-air painting and drawing. 

This is one of the drawings John did during our excursion, it's a portrait of me painting. It is definitely one of my favorite drawings of the day. 

-R