Painting and Drawings

 First Presbyterian Church on 5th Ave. New York City

Oil on Panel 8 x 10

 Reading While Waiting for the Train

 Dozing off on Subway

A Passenger on Subway

This is my last plein-air painting in New York before I come back here in May. It could be counted as one of the worst days in my plein-air painting history. I saw the First Presbyterian Church a couple of days ago and decided to paint it. It was a warm Sunday. I got up early believing it would not be too crowded in Midtown New York. I left home early and by the time I got to the subway station, there had been very few passengers going to the City. When I settled down in the train, I began to sketch fellow passengers. Two stops before 14th St. I saw a sign began to blink saying the train would not stop at 14th St. So I quickly hopped off the train remembering what I was told about the confusing schedule of the subway on weekend. A college student-like lady got off the train, too. We got on the D train. After she checked on the map, she told me that D train would not stop at 14th St., either. So we got off at Washington Square. When I was puzzled and didn't know how to get to 14th St. station, the girl told me to follow her and go over to the other side and take F train in the opposite direction. 

When F train came, I was about to step into the train car after her. The girl suddenly backed out of the car and said quickly, "Move to the other car." I immediately realized why she did that. In the car, three homeless men were sleeping by themselves. There were no other passengers in the car. When the car door opened, I was right hit by a stink of urine. It seemed the three guys spent the previous night on the subway.

From 14th St./8th Ave.,I pulled my kit all the way to 13th St and 5th Ave crossroad. On the street corner, a strip part along the sidewalk was fenced in for construction. I set up with my back to the fence and began to paint. Everything went well  till noon when it suddenly became windy. The wind was so strong that I had to tie my easel to the pole on the sidewalk and use paper clips to fasten my palette to the easel. Too often, I had to hold my easel lest the wind might blow it down. When I was wrapping up the painting, the worst thing happened. A gust of wind blew the palette off the easel, in spite of the clips, and right onto my left-arm sleeve. I got paint all over myself. When I got home, I had to do dry cleaning with mineral spirit. Hope you like the painting and drawings.