Monthly Archives: April 2016

drawing in books project

I am currently working on a project that involves illustrating in books (but only old cheap books!). Todays blog has a sketch about those books and some drawing in the books I found.

I have previously written about the concept of drawing in books.

16Apr15 booksale

The books were being sold so cheaply that they might as well have been given away free, At $5 a bag these filled my idea of cheap. Some books were old and some were newer (these are titles that you see at every secondhand bookshop)

16Apr15 books

Below are both “works in progress” in two books. The drawings are in watercolour pencil. I have discovered that in most cases I do not need to ‘prime’ the pages before I draw on them.

16Apr15 bookeggs

Undomestic Godess by Sophie Kinsella

Ross's Outline of English History

Ross’s Outline of English History

16Apr15 bookqueen

Ross’s Outlines of English History

sketching my roast dinner

A few weeks ago I visited the Lost Trades Fair in nearby Kyneton.

I wrote about sketching my lunch at the burger stall run by  Sidonnia Hills Natural Beef

IMG_1425

my sketch and my burger

Sidonia Hills were running a ‘photograph your burger’ competition. I entered a photo of my drawing and burger and was excited when I received a message that I had tied for first place.
My prize?     4 kg of beef cuts.

16April2016 Sidonia Hills beef dinner

The first big dinner was held last night at a friends house (who loves to cook) . Roasted topside of beef and vegetables. It seemed only fitting to sketch my dinner as well.

Thank you to everyone who contributed toward the meal !

16April2016 baking dinner1

Louise cooking

I enjoy drawing food.

Enjoyed the main meal ? See some sweets and desserts on my flickr site

sketching at a conference

On Saturday I attended a conference “Judging for the People,” honouring 175  years of the Supreme Court in Victoria.

I am a librarian at the Supreme Court Library and keen to learn more about Melbourne and Victorian history, so it was a fascinating day for me. There are associated exhibitions at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and the Supreme Court Library, and a book to be launched next week that tells the stories behind the history.

09April2016 conference 1and2

I am practicing my reportage sketching at events. I decided to focus on drawing the speakers at this conference, after I had sketched my traditional “back of heads” audience scene. This is my comfort zone, so I was able to relax before taking on the more challenging sketching.

The session speakers sat at a desk while their fellow speaker took to the podium, and this provided me the ideal opportunity to sketch them . I have scanned the pages as I sketched them at the time.

I am going spend time in the next week or so thinking about how and where I add the writing on the page and to practice my lettering. I will think about who the pages are for and the information required. In this case, they are for me. However if the pages were sketched for the event organisers as a record of their event, I would need to add more information, explanation and maybe some quotes.

09April2016 conference session 1The sessions were

What the docquicentannnial of the Supreme Court means for Victoria.  (open keynote speaker)Session One Judge-made law and judicial independence (five speakers)

09April2016 conference molesworth

Justice Victoria Bennetts’s talk on Sir Robert Molesworth , (long time judge of the Supreme Court, 1856-1886) and his extraordinary matrimonial dispute, was bought to life by an actor. At intervals through her presentation he stood up, put on a wig and quoted from the relevant party – a court reporter, Editor of the Argus newspaper, barrister for Mrs Molesworth, Chief Justice Stawell and George Higginbotham, Solicitor General. Very entertaining and an unexpected opportunity for quick sketching.

09April2016 conference session 2

Session Two Unexpected impact of the law (four speakers)

09April2016 session 3 09April2016 session3 video

Session Three The Fourth Estate and Justice (three panelists and a moderator) . The Fourth Estate refers to the media. We watched a video of a judge (above) handing down a judgment that was televised .

All the talks were very fascinating and different and so well presented.

I also sketched the audience. My colleagues and I noted that there was a lot of tweed in the room.

09April2016 conference audience

I am gradually fine tuning my style of sketching people and how and when I use my pen and my watercolour pencils. It is a skill to be able to capture the likeness of a person on the page. I am trying to put one or two features down on paper . Often it is the shape of their head or hair, their sitting position and their clothes. I am trying not to add too many features on the face – eyes, nose, mouth, as this can get messy on the page.

My recent ‘sketching at events”  included Dromkeen Literary Festival

I am following the work of Veronica Lawlor , who has recently written a book “Reportage and Documentary Drawing” and also Liz Ackerley who is one of the correspondents documenting the Urban Sketching Symposium in Manchester in July (which I am attending).

 

 

reusing sketches

A short and simple blog post this week.

31Mar16 Birthday card

It is my nephews 10th birthday .  He lives in another state and  I have been disorganised and ran out of time. I bought a last minute present ( which he loved) and made a last minute birthday card. Usually I like to draw a customised birthday card, that includes something that the person likes or includes an interest they have . This time I used a sketch I had created a few years ago, printed it onto card and added a little extra to make it birthday card.

Below is the original, sketched in Sydney at the Australian Museum in 2011. (in two scans because it was over two pages)

scan0055 scan0056 scan0057

Something serious and sensible and scientific , suddenly become a little bit silly.