Sunday - Daylight Savings Time

I need this. I am having a hard time going to sleep earlier than 1 or 2 and I sleep until 9. Now I will go to sleep at 12 and get up at 8 - better. I did 5 loads of wash during my extra hour today - though it sloughed over into the next 2 hours. I was REALLY hungry around 2 so I went to Jackson Hole, just down the road, and ordered the Goat cheese and portabello mushroom omlette that Flynn had when he was here and highly recommended. I ordered mine with the optional broccoli. It needed another egg because it was pretty much a plate of marinated mushroom with a little melted cheese and lots of broccoli but it was good for me, along with the whole grain toast. I was full and walked home.

I grabbed my drawing supplies. Oh wait. I am now a fan. My new drawing teacher (actually he is the original drawing teacher who had a heart attack a couple weeks before school started so another guy taught the first 4-5 weeks for him) is having us use lots of different media. I have 3 different pen tips and holders, black and sepia ink, conte crayons, small paint brushes, pencils of all hard and softness and charcoal. This is the drawing I made last week from the model:


It's a little different than the pencil drawings from the weeks before. Those classes were excellent and I learned a lot but this new teacher is making me love doing this.

So, I grab all my drawing supplies and head to Central Park. It's 41 degrees outside, so I bundle up, grab a blanket (so I can sit in a better spot than on a bench) and head towards the noise. There's all kinds of yelling and bull horns and as I get closer, I am seeing people in running gear with cellophane sheets wrapped around their shoulders and then, holy smoke - it's the end of the New York City Marathon! The 25th mile is in Central Park and it's late in the afternoon, it's been over 7 hours and there is still a steady stream of people running the last mile towards the Plaza Hotel, Bergdorf Goodman and the new Apple store. What fun.


I haven't been through the whole park, it's got to be 5 miles long, but still, my favorite spot is on the bridge looking over a little pond towards the Plaza Hotel. It's a really popular place to take photos and I had to wait a bit for a couple to leave but I grabbed a corner spot on the bridge, laid out my paper and went to work. I drew it in with pencil first and discovered it's a lot easier than it was 6 weeks ago. Then I picked up the ink pen, dipped it in the sepia and started drawing over the pencil. All the while people are taking photos next to me and they are probably cursing me for taking the best spot and spoiling their photos. I was probably there for an hour and a half and my fingers were freezing as the sun started setting. I'm not done but nothing's going to move before I get back to finish...


I walked north through the park instead of homeward and took a few last photos of the final marathon stragglers and crossed over to 72nd street to head east and home. I stopped in a 'Ralph Lauren' store that looked really beautiful, mostly just to get warm and discovered I had walked into their new flagship store Ole Ralph opened about 2 weeks ago. MAN, it was gorgeous and I felt a little out of place - you can't believe how these people dress around here - but I wandered up all 4 floors, checked out a shearling 'muff' for $2,400 and told them I thought it was too small...


Instead of turning down 2nd and home, I walked to 1st. It appears the further you get from Fifth Avenue the more mace you need. However, there IS a Baskin Robbins on 1st, so I stopped in for some ice cream, grabbed 3 expensive apples at the corner grocery store and got home all in 1 piece. Which is more than I can say for an 'older tenant' here in the apartment building. There were a couple ambulances in front of the building this morning and this evening there was the Medical Examiner. I had a great, great day!