Thursday, June 20, 2013

DOWN MEMORY LANE: MORNINGS IN THE PARK

Hi Everyone! 


Welcome to the Down Memory Lane Series Part 2! Last week we meandered through The Neighborhood. If you missed that walk down Memory Lane you can find it here.  Today we will visit one of my favorite parks! 


Located on the Indian River on a lovely stretch of land, this park has been through a tremendous renovation and revitalized over the last decade. It offers a something for everyone, a place for families to come and picnic, fish, walk the dogs and play. There is an interactive water fountain that kids love to play in a Children's museum and a lovely historic Mansion on the hill.


This sketch was done when they were first developing the park and I was developing my love for drawing there. 



A group of friends often got together for a day to go to the park to sketch, paint and go to lunch. This page reflects the day's adventures of sketching in the park, going to the art supply store, having lunch, a stop at the bookstore and some fun doing gesture drawings in my living room! It was a great day and each time I look at this it brings back a wonderful day spent with friends.

A quick watercolor sketch
 Over the years I've spent many pleasant hours sketching and painting this area. It is my favorite quiet spot away from the crowds.  There are walking trails that travel around the pond filled with tall trees and flowers.
Watercolor of pond

I could happily paint here a hundred times and still not be tired of this little piece of paradise.  Up on the hill is the mansion called Tuckahoe. It was built on an Indian mound  (there are many of these in the area). The mansion has been restored to it's former glory days, but in my sketch below it was still in disrepair. For many years the place was fenced off and not accessible to the public. Once we had a church function at the park and we were allowed to take a tour before it was restored. OH! It was so awesome, I could just imagine how grand it was back in the day. 


Tuckahoe Mansion
Well that's our Walk in The Park for today.  I do have more park adventures to share with you, so please stop back again real soon!   
Happy Sketching!Suzy



x

6 comments:

Anne Payne said...

♥♥♥ your sketches!!! You need to come to the mountains and we can go hiking....lots of sketching opportunity :)

Jeanna said...

I know and love this park as well. Your work has captured its beauty very nicely.

cjsrq said...

I was intrigued by your post today as I have not heard of this park or mansion although I live in Florida (on the west coast). Your paintings really brought the park to life for me. I Googled the Park and mansion to learn more about it. Thank you for sharing this piece of Florida history.

Arnoldo L. Romero, MLA said...

These are all lovely landscapes, but my favorite is the first one with the 3 palm trees. Happy PPF and Blessings!

Dawn said...

What beautiful sketches/watercolours Suzy, thanks for sharing them. I particularly love the mansion, stunning work.
Hugs x

Breesmimi said...

Thank you all so much for stopping by and leaving such kind comments.