Look left, look right

When I’m teaching on location, I often try to arrive a day early to find painting locations for my group. For my workshop at Hudson River Valley Art Workshops last week, I was really happy to discover the Hudson River waterfront park in Hudson, NY. It has big trees for shade, restrooms, coffee nearby, and of course, some great views. Look left and you can see a tugboat and some industrial barges. Look right and you’ll see the Schooner Apollonia.

We had a beautiful morning to sketch the tugboat but by early afternoon there were some dark clouds in the distance. I thought I could get in another quick demo of the schooner in before the rain, but it was upon us before I had time to pack up. My sky wash was still wet when the precipitation went from a light mist to a deluge. The water splats are giant raindrops that fell on my still-wet page and the rest of the scene was painted in studio, after a full change of clothing and a warm cup of tea. It took two days for my knapsack to dry out.

The Hudson River Valley is full of great painting spots. Besides the river scenes, there are rolling hills, mountain vistas, interesting small towns, and tons of history. The Greenville Arms Inn is a welcoming and cozy place to stay, and we have ample studio space in case of bad weather. I can’t promise that it won’t rain, but I can attest that the food is delicious and the dinner conversations with other sketchers are always lively. I’ll be back there next August, if you are interested in coming along.

Olana, home of Frederic Church

Posted: September 19, 2025 | Author: Shari Blaukopf | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Frederic Church, Hudson River Valley, Hudson River Valley Art Workshops, lettering, Olana, sketchbook | 19 Comments

You really do need multiple sketches to properly convey Olana, home of the Hudson River School artist Frederic Church. (I spelled his name incorrectly in my sketchbook, as I just found out!) First of all, the Persian-inspired home is on top of a hill, with views of the Hudson River Valley, the Catskills and four states, on a clear day. It’s best to walk down to a lower level on the property to capture its position on that upper ridge. But if you do that, you have your back to the Hudson, and you need to get that in there too, because the early autumn panorama from the top is quite spectacular too. Once you’ve sketched the distant views, you also need to record the details of the moorish-inspired architecture. I could have completed another spread just of arched windows, inset doors, tiled chimneys, ornate brickwork and stencilled borders but I only had room for a few on my page.

This sketch may not look great if you are looking at it on a phone because I used a double-page spread in my sketchbook, so the final size is quite large: 22″ x 8″. But the location was so grand that I needed a lot of room to really tell the story of the place, and for that I needed both sides of the book.

My students also did some amazing work at Olana. It’s a very welcoming place for artists, as you might imagine. I’ll be teaching again at Hudson Valley Art Workshops next August. If you want to join the group, I’m pretty sure we’ll go back to Olana. We had a really wonderful week with Kim and her team at Greenville Arms, and registration is already open here.