A Spring Day in Central Park

This post is adapted from this thread from April 4, 2025 (some edits made on May 9, 2026).

I would like to share about my day out and about in NYC, mostly Central Park, and my ill-fated watercolor pencil experience!

Before entering the park, I noted that everyone shops at the fruit cart.

I began looking for a place to set up and draw. In the meantime, I played with mental compositions.

I always love seeing the surrounding buildings and other NYC infrastructure around the nature; it’s such an iconic place.

My focus this spring has been on the small indicators of growth: tiny buds, new leaves etc.

I never noticed hydrangea leaves coming in before, with last year’s dead flowers still hanging on. This became my obsession today. No other leaves were so pale and soft-looking.

Finding the right place to sit and draw was difficult. Benches faced the sidewalk, so people would pass by frequently. I wanted to be more off the beaten path (literally) but find just the right subject at just the right distance. So many incredible scenes (and trees).

Oh, that’s gonna be the one! It’s like, absurdly perfect, almost fake-looking. I chose it for its simplicity, as you’ll soon see: I have no idea how to use these materials.

I sat with my supplies - some Derwent inktense pencils, regular pencils, Micron pens, a Derwent waterbrush and some other brushes. I ended up not using the spray bottle or tape.

I’m not super comfy with the watercolor pencils, so we’ll see…

Initial sketch: okay, those branches look fine…

First wash with the waterbrush: hey, this is going well!

I used to be really good with pen and ink so I decided to add some pen lines… ehhh not loving it.

Okay, maybe if I put some light colors for the background it’ll get better OH MY GOD why is that SO RED??

Yeah… I’d never used these powerful “inktense” pencils before. Oops.

So, that was a disappointing exercise (about an hour) and I was sore from sitting on the ground. Time to scope out more of the park for next time.

The spring landscape colors are incredibly diverse.

By now it was about 6pm and an overcast “golden-ish hour” seemed to be upon us. Nice.

This squirrel was excellent.

Can’t forget to look closer at the flowers and flowering shrubs… (I saw literally two tulips the whole time)

…and those little buds and other tiny spring details you might overlook. Every tree is different.

The best magnolias were by the obelisk, by the way.

Nice to see so many people out and about.

Sorry, the trees were so good. Look at the trunks and branches too, though - not just the pretty flowers! They’re all so distinct. (Bonus glimpses of outside the park)

It started getting dark and I almost felt disappointed that the day was over, but as the lights came on I realized it was an equally interesting time.

This turtle came out, and I enjoyed seeing the reflection of traffic and street lights on the pond.

Everything looked different at dusk (and my aging iPhone camera started to struggle).

This made me want to say, I enjoy life more now that I’m always looking for… things.

Things like… the reflection of a car’s brake lights on these benches.

Or the reflection of the sky in this soggy grass area.

Or this guy with his two dogs.

Or symmetry with construction barrels.

You don’t have to take pictures to enjoy these moments.

That’s all for today. Stay tuned for my next attempt at watercolor pencil, and future oil studies based on these scenes. Soon I’ll be brave and go out with a real plein air easel.

What have you been noticing this spring?