100 Views of the Hudson River Valley

It's been a while since my last post, but I've been busy drawing! Since moving up to the Hudson River Valley, I've been somewhat compulsively making pastel paintings of our new surroundings.

It began with a few small thumbnails, and then grew, day by day from there.

It's amazing what living surrounded by nature allows you to notice.

And on the river, the changes happen minute by minute.

 

Sometimes it's hard to stop drawing because by the time one drawing is finished, there's another one waiting outside! This is a small selection of the pastel paintings over the past few months.

There's a freedom that comes with being able to observe the same general scene over and over. It allows for abstraction, naturalism, and exaggeration to come and go.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this new inspiration takes me.

And now that spring is finally here, everything changes once again!

To see more, follow me on Instagram: @evanturkart

Summer Day

Yesterday I had a beautiful day of drawing in the West Village. I started out a French cafe on 6th avenue and had a delicious waffle, while sitting next to the most awful woman I have ever seen.

• Within seconds of sitting down, our waiter had come to get her drink order and she proceeded to yell at him about some silly thing with the chair.
  
• Once he brought her coffee, she went to yell at one of the busboys that the waiter hadn't brought her a new spoon quickly enough.
  
• When the waiter came back to take her order, she ordered eggs on the side. When the waiter asked if she wanted eggs on the side of something or just a side of eggs, she yelled again and asked for a new waiter.
• She then called over the hostess and yelled at her because a new waiter hadn't been assigned to her yet (it had been about one minute). She asked to speak to the manager. The hostess calmed her down, and she then ordered a side of eggs and toast.
• When the hostess sweetly named all of the breads they carried, the woman then yelled at her for not having "plain" toast, and grumpily allowed them to bring her sourdough. The poor girl looked so terrified, like she was trying to put out a fire that had started for absolutely no reason.
• All of this occurred within about 5 minutes.
  

It was completely baffling to me that people treat waiters like that, but I guess people are so inside their own heads sometimes that they don't realize the people around them are people too! *sigh* Anyhoo at least it made for an entertaining meal!

I then went to sit in the park across from Magnolia Bakery, where the pigeons are quite brazen, and where droves of tourists stand in line all day to get movie-star cupcakes. Personally, I've never really liked the cupcakes that much...but I can't really talk, since I went there my first week of being in New York too.

Magnolia also draws crowds of tour groups, especially from the "Sex and the City Tour" variety. While there, several bachelorette parties came by to stop and sample the famous cupcakes. Everyone was always dressed to the nines, like they were out for a night of clubbing, wearing cropped black jackets (all of them) and five inch stilettos (for a walking tour...gluttons for punishment!).

Other than the cupcake aficionados, there was a sweet, beautiful woman who seemed to be falling more in love with the man she was sitting across from every minute. Her smile kept beaming from across the park.

There was also a woman who was quite the multitasker.

Then I left the park and walked towards the Hudson to watch the sunset.

When the sun started to set across the river, there was a sweet gay couple enjoying the moment under the trees. Then a big wind came and blew my ink bottle all over the table. Ink-tastrophe! Still, a great day!