I didn't know this until visiting my father last weekend.
This 1st sketch was done from my fathers apartment balcony looking across the Hudson river to the upper west side of Manhattan. The storm had just cleared and the blue sky was just starting to appear.
The next day we headed to go see the Statue of liberty since we found out there was a ferry from the New Jersey side going to the Liberty islands. This made it much more convenient than having to go into Manhattan with lots of traffic and people. The last time I remember going to the Liberty island was for a school trip over 35 years ago! - so this was quite exciting to be able to see it again and it was also my wife's first time to the islands too.
Going through security, we hopped on the ferry that consisted of 2 stops. The first stop was Ellis Island - a gateway for millions of immigrants that came into the United States and was considered to be the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954.
The building shown is now the museum of immigration. The displays inside looked amazing but unfortunately could not see any of it due to the limited time we had. We however ended up on the island for an hour waiting on line for the ferry to go to the Statue of Liberty Island. Standing in line under scorching sun and in between large amounts of people was unpleasant but I was able to keep my self entertained working on the sketch shown below.
Once on the Liberty Island we needed to go through another security checkpoint to go up to the observation deck area and not even a small bag was allowed through. These are the times when I feel good that all of my sketching equipment fits inside my cargo shorts pockets including my newly purchased mini folding stool a size of a small water bottle!
The problem with sketching anything this iconic such as the Statue of Liberty is the difficulty in finding a fun view that I haven't already seen before. I finally settled on this view, sitting quite close to the statue base and also fitting in the Manhattan skyscrapers on the right hand side. The tall blue building is One World Trade center, also used to be called the Freedom Tower.
It was a tough view and I wish I had time to do another one but we needed to head back home.
Well, once again we were in line a long time for the Ferry back to NJ. I at least was able to once again sketch while standing in a tight queue keeping myself entertained. I personally love how the back view of the Statue of Liberty came out!
It was a gorgeous 4th of July weekend and we headed back home to Boston.
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