It was one of those weeks. The kind where life happens and not much art work gets done. Although I did find time to flip through some of my sketch books. And reminisce about the good old days when it was easy to take sketching trips for granted.

For me, sketching on location is just plain fun. And since it's fun, it's a painless way to practice and improve my design and drawing skills. It also happens to slow me down for a deeper look at my surroundings, which widens my appreciation of them. All wonderful reasons for regular sketching trips!

In the whole wide world, one of my favorite places to sketch is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. With so many galleries and amazing treasures, it would take a lifetime to draw them all. Of course, right now getting out and about is pretty much on hold. So my sketches have become precious keepsakes, bringing back memories of the days when indoor expeditions were a lot less complicated. I'm looking forward to their return! And I don't suppose I'll ever take them for granted again.

Here are a few of my Metropolitan Museum sketches. Click through the gallery below to see larger images.

Look what I found! A photo of me, way back when.  I was just a kid, posing for my mother's painting class at the Hudson Guild Art School in Chelsea. It brought back memories of my first art teacher, Hungarian artist Theodore Fried (1902-1980), who taught art classes there for both children and adults. He had been in the Paris art scene of the 1920s, and later, when the Nazis came, his art was banned as "degenerate". Being Jewish he fled for his life to Toulouse where he forged passports for the French Resistance. Escaping once again, he made it safely to New York where he established his own art school. An amazing story to be sure, but I knew absolutely nothing of this when I was a child. To me Mr. Fried was a jolly man with a nearly impenetrable Hungarian accent and a twinkle in his eye. He loved kids and often entertained us by wiggling his ears. 

When I first showed up in his class at the age of ten, Mr. Fried handed me a brush and a muffin tin filled with poster paints. He encouraged me to paint anything my little heart desired. Months later he gave me a pencil and started me down the road to drawing from life. This was much more challenging, especially when he forbade me to use the eraser – ​an exercise designed to make me think carefully before drawing. When I became proficient enough at this he allowed me to join the older kids in the oil painting class. I was thrilled.

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Lately I've been taking my nonagenarian mother out for her morning walks whenever circumstances permit. Luckily she's an artist too. So it's not hard to persuade her to sketch outside with me for an hour or two. We can only walk a few blocks, and there aren't many parks close by. So we find little corners and courtyards and churchyards or really any old place with a few fresh blossoms that break up the gray. Sometimes it's a challenge to see beauty in an area that I'm so used to walking right past. But since we've started sketching together I've noticed more and more little spots that we can stop for a while and enjoy the view. Here are two brush pen and watercolor sketches from this week in my immediate neighborhood:

Summer is my favorite time of year. Of course I love the warm weather and the longer days. Another real bonus is that my day job schedule lightens up. So there's more time to paint outdoors, yay!

When I'm busy painting there's little room in my head for much else. Like housework, or chores, or writing posts on my blog. That means my to-do list can get really backed up. Which brings me to another catch-up post about watercolors I painted during the summer. 

So-o-o-o ... here are two watercolors I did within walking distance of my home in Manhattan. One is in Central Park, and the other in Carl Schurz Park. Both paintings have long shadows from the late afternoon sun. To avoid the heat and the sun's white glare on my paper I stood in the shade and wore a big floppy hat. Looking at these paintings brings me right back to those lovely, warm afternoons I spent painting them. Can't wait for next summer!

According to the Central Park website, there are four butterfly gardens at the north end of the park. They provide a welcome stop-over for Monarchs and other butterflies as they migrate through New York. Yes, we do have nature right here in the city, believe it or not.

The Peter Pan sculpture in Charles Schurz Park was created by Charles Andrew Hafner in 1928. In a former life it was in a fountain at the old Paramount Theater lobby in Times Square. Apparently the theater was modeled after the Paris Opera House, with painted murals, niche statues, marble columns, red velvet curtains, a Wurlitzer organ and a grand staircase. Wow, what a spectacular palace that must have been! 

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Most artists around the world make their living at a day job. I'm one of them. So when the work day is over I try my damnedest to get in a few hours of painting. In the warmer months I often stop at the nearest park on my way home to look for a bench with a paintable view. All I need is a 5x7 inch watercolor block, a folding travel brush, a small palette filled with paint, a couple of paper towels and a plastic water jar. And I'm in business. Here are three summer-time sketches I made before the evening commute:

What I got down on my paper doesn't completely match what I had in mind when I first spotted these two spectacular views on the piers. Don't get me wrong, I'm not unhappy with them! But the results are  an approximation and a surprise. I'm still pretty new to watercolor, and In these paintings I concentrated on experiments with washes and dry brush techniques. I didn't know how they would turn out. Of course, an artist who wants to grow never stops experimenting and learning. After all, we're always inventing ways to interpret a three dimensional world in a two dimensional medium. Not only that, but we've only got a finite number of pigments to describe all the infinite and dazzling colors of nature. So we're always reaching. And then reaching for more. And so it goes. 

This past August I took a short, lovely trip to Quebec City. It's a place full of hills and vistas, and exquisite old buildings with more turrets than a Disney castle. In other words, a perfect place for sketching.

I was traveling solo and wanted to round up some sketching buddies to share my adventures with. So I did a search on the Urban Sketchers website for the Quebec City chapter. I thought surely there must one, since it's such a charming, sketchable city. But I was wrong. Hmmmm. So I searched for artist meet-ups instead, and this time I struck gold. Turns out that artist Denise Bujold runs a wonderful series of events called "Artistes dans le Parcs". Each month artists meet at the parks in Quebec City for sketching, painting and companionship. And I couldn't wait to meet them!

They did not disappoint. There was a friendly crowd at the Parc Nautique de Cap-Rouge on the day I joined them. Denise and the other artists welcomed me warmly even though my French is horrible. Fortunately their English is a thousand times better than my French!

At the park I painted a watercolor on the bank of the St. Lawrence River. It was a challenge to catch it before the ebbing tide turned the bank back into a flowering marsh. 

Larry Marshall and Yvan Breton were also at the event, and graciously invited me to go out sketching with them the next day. How wonderful it was to be with two inspiring local artists who knew their way around and could point out great places to sketch. It began to rain just as we settled down to draw at the old lower city, or Basse-Ville, but Yvan knew about a covered entrance to a building where we could draw the picturesque Université Laval while we waited it out. 

Eventually it came time to say good bye to my new friends. But being with them and seeing their wonderful sketches renewed my interest in drawing. And so I continued to sketch on my own in their beautiful city. 

What to do when you're learning how to paint watercolor portraits, but there's no model around? Actually there's always a model handy if you've got a mirror. And that's how the Self Portrait Project was born.

I bought an inexpensive 60 page sketchbook and dedicated it to painting self portraits. The only way to become really good at something is to practice. Like all the time. So I've decided to paint one a day, or as often as life permits. 

To me self portraits are more challenging than painting someone else, because it's hard to hold the pose and concentrate on painting at the same time. It's easy to get mixed up, so that your nose is pointing one way and your chin is pointing in the other. And as much as I admire Picasso, I'm not trying to paint like him.

Anyway, I love a challenge, so here goes. At the end of this project maybe painting portraits will be a piece of cake. These are my first four efforts in the sketch book, in reverse chronological order. I'm beginning to get more comfortable with the process, and that gives me hope. 

Our Thanksgiving turkey was browning in the oven, and the guests were getting hungry. So I placed an appetizer on the table, and my sister said "Wow, that's beautiful, you should paint that!" 

She was right, of course. So when I got the chance I created a similar set up in my studio. I love the sweet/salty aromas and tastes that the subject evokes. And all the gorgeous colors and textures, and the beautiful cast shadow under the plate. It really was a delicious composition to paint!