En Plein Air: Figure Sketches at Forest Park

It was cloudy this morning, even sprinkling a little. I was walking in nearby streets in attempt to find a spot to paint. there were one or two places I could actually set up and paint. However, there were so many big trees there over the street that I felt like I was not quite ready to paint scenes with the kind of lighting. So I simply walked a full circle around the block pulling my kit with me, even going a quite steep slope. Finally I ended up in the Forest Park. Encouraged by the oil sketch I did of the three New York artists the other day at the Hudson River Park, I decided to do figure sketching in oil.

There was at the park a large lawn which has naturally become a gathering ground for dog lovers. Every morning people walk their dog in the park. Toward the end of their walking, they come to the lawn to either sit on the roadside benches to get back their breath and chat a little with each other or stand in the lawn appreciating and patting each other's dogs. quite a few of them often unleash their dogs and let them run or chase their friends. I saw a bald-headed man with a beer tummy sitting on the bench and talking loudly into his cell phone in Russian. I thought he would stay for a while like this, so I immediately set up at about 15 yards away from him and meant to use him as my model. Before I could start to paint, he finished his phone talk and leashed his dog. Yes, he was taking off. Therefore, I turned my easel a 45 degree and began to paint a group f people chatting in the lawn. Of course, they didn't stay there for me to paint. I had to rearrange the figures to compose my picture. There was no possibility for a full-tone picture, but I caught their form with a brief set of relationships. I am not sure if I got it done for 20 minutes or not. What you see is what I got there and then.

After I was done with the dog lovers, a young man came to sit on the bench where the Russian beer tummy sat a few minutes ago, so I put a new mounted canvas paper on the easel and did a second sketch.

Dog Lovers at Forest Park

Oil, 9 x 12

Reading at the Park

Oil, 12 x 9

I guess I must be pretty eye-catching considering a grey-haired Asian old fool painting almost everyday here in this area. Now whenever people saw me painting, they would come over to me and smile, "I saw you painting the other day over there on the street corner, right?" Most people are friendly and I enjoy 

their causal brief talk and answer their questions except yesterday when I was painting the Granston Tower, a local resident came and wanted to involve me in something like half a job interview and half a symposium discussion on culture. I had to say, "I am sorry, but I need some concentration.