Landscape Sketches

Somehow for a year I stopped drawing and developing ideas in my moleskine sketchbook. I carry it with me everywhere everyday but somehow it's been untouched since last June! That changed a couple of weeks ago when an unexpected trip to Central Park after work in a beautiful sunny afternoon brought me face to face with a little vignette of the Beresford in Central Park West. That afternoon I discovered a nice little spot by Turtle Pond, and across the water this building stood tall dominating the skyline. Who can resist?

Inspiration struck again last week while visiting Colorado. Funny thing is that the last three drawings in my sketchbook were landscapes sketched in Colorado a year ago, and now that same state and it's vast land caused me draw some more. 

These three sketches were drawn in a moving car while going from place to place. I approached these as a fun exercise, it required me to see something in a few seconds, take a metal picture, and at the same time lay down some quick gestures of the main planes and elements of the landscape. From there I developed the drawing from memory, which is a nice change.

I'm planning on turning all of these drawings into bigger oil paintings. The next step is to take these sketches and make some oil sketches to determine the values and to further develop the details of the composition.