Boardwalking

My original plan for yesterday was to visit a boardwalk or two in the late morning/early afternoon, before going to Belmar to do a shift of gallery sitting. That all changed when I got called into work on what should have been a day off. So I get an additional day of pay this week and shifted my Wednesday plans to Thursday. The only possible problem was that forecasts were predicting some wet weather all over the region. Skies were cloudy, but no rain was falling and the radar showed no major storms heading for the area, so I decided to try a trip in the afternoon.

I drove up to the Studio, but rather than go into the building, I left my car there in the lot and walked to the Ocean Grove beach. Then I turned left and kept walking until I was on the Asbury Park boardwalk. My plans for the next boardwalk print call for a view of a commercially developed stretch on one side and big rides in the distance. I'm envisioning something like Seaside Heights, but didn't feel like traveling that far just for a few reference photos. Asbury's boardwalk currently has much less development and no rides, but what is there will do fine as a guide to the perspective and scale of what I have in mind. Some light sprinkles were falling all along, but it never turned into a steady rain. I took several photos from different points (such as the one above), and took a few minutes to see Molly's art on display at Langosta Lounge. Then the walk back to the Studio, where I picked up a few items, got back into my vehicle, and drove to the Boatworks.

Gallery sitting was as quiet as it always is, so I used some of the time to do some sketching. Using the view screen on the camera, I combined aspects of different photos into a few very rough sketches in a sketchbook. A lot more will need to be determined soon, but I think the composition I had been considering will work. The next step will be to blow up that sketch to full block size and start working out some of the specific details.