Category Archives: Sydney

Erin’s Sketch class and a days travel journaling

My first blog post, on 27 March this year was prompted by going to Erin Hill sketching classes to show her students how I use my watercolour pencils. I talked about it to the class and then I realised I really needed to put it in writing, as so much of it happens in my head. So that became my first blog.  Read about the steps I go through here

Yesterday, I had the honor of being invited back by Erin to show her current Sketch class how I use my pencils. I decided to also use it as travel journal day, as I knew it would be a full day out and I may have the opportunity to capture moments on my day. This is all in planning for my very upcoming holiday to the UK.

I filled 8 pages of my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook. You will notice that there are a few different styles. Each is suited to where I am and the time I have, and how I feel.

I started my day on the bus into Sydney city and was not planning to draw, but the man in front had a hair “style” worth drawing. I knew I had 20 to 30 minutes to draw him, until the bus reached the city. When I got home at the end of the day I realised I had not  left a page for a map for my travel journal day , so I squished it in on the page around him.


On the ferry from Sydney city to Manly I had 30 minutes to draw something. No one else was outside where I was sitting, so I drew the scenery and me.  There is never nothing to draw! When I got to Erin’s class, one of the other students had also drawn her crossed legs on her journey in

 


At Erin’s class this week the theme was glass bottles and jars and she had them set up on the tables. I choose these old pottery bottles. I drew them once and then a second time to show the class of 10 how I use watercolour pencils. As you can see from the second drawing, there is not a lot of marks on the paper, bit there was a lot of discussion and questions. I hope that I opened the students eyes as to the different ways watercolour pencils can be used to make marks on paper and how I use them. It was inspirational to talk with them.

Erin has Thursday Friday and Saturday classes and the students glass bottles and jars drawings from those days  are here. A wonderful variety of styles, line work and colours !

We then walked a short way to a local Art gallery “Raglan Gallery” to sketch. They had some lovely glass and ceramic bowls and jars, but I chose a small alabaster classical statue.

 LUNCH
 

 

 

 

 
 After about  30 minutes we went next door for lunch and more sketching . Although we were eating in, I noticed that their takeaway cups were blank – a ready made canvas.   I have only recently “discovered” this,  and have drawn on coffee cups at Cockatoo Island and  RPA . People have been doing this for ages and there a entire blog using them as the canvas for New York City.
At lunch I sketched y lunch, some of our group. Some of them also sketched on a cup  
 
 
After a few lovely hours with fellow sketchers, I made my way back to the ferry terminal, to discover the next ferry was not leaving for another 30 minutes. Time for another sketch! I drew the view across the water to the beautiful buildings . Then I saw the ferry pulling in, so quickly went through the ticket gate to join the queue. I was at the back of the queue, which didn’t move, as we had to wait for all the passengers to come off –  so I sketched the people !
 

 
 
 And then finally – a VERY big swell saw the ferry moving up and down in the waves as we left Manly Harbour. I could see how much we were moving as the horizon moved from the top of my line of vision to the bottom. A man stood on the side deck enjoying it all.
I think sketching the scene may have stopped me from getting seasick
 
A very big, long day, but I was immensely pleased with what I captured in my sketchbook and the opportunity to sketch with other motivated people
 

St Andrews College, RPA

Cockatoo Island

Cockatoo Island is in Sydney Harbour and a wonderful place to spend a day.
 
It was a convict settlement from 1839. It was also the site of one of Australia’s biggest shipyards, operating between 1857 and 1991. The first of its two dry docks was built by convicts. Many of the original sandstone convict buildings and the dockyard and shipbuilding complex are still in place and you can explore them. There are also many, many cranes from its shipbuilding years. Sketching heaven !!

Now you can also camp overnight in tents as well as catch a ferry there for the day. It is a favourite place of my sketching friends to visit and we have been there often.

I caught a quick 10 minute ferry ride , but had time to fill in first at the terminal – by drawing !

 

some tanks
 
pipes on the side of a large beautiful old sandstone building




a very large crane and some tents for camping
the same crane that I drew on my coffee cup

There are so many buildings equipment and views to sketch on Cockatoo island. I had my watercolour pencils and Lamy ink Safari Pen with me and my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook. Last time I was here I especially brought large sheets of paper with me and some inks to experiment with . I had felt the need to sketch these cranes LARGE one day. I did a few, but it was raining, which does not work well with watercolours and ink . I can try again next weekend as it is the place for the Urban Sketchers Sydney next event !

I also found a sketch from my first visit to Cockatoo Island in Jul 2008. It was for an International Sketchcrawl and the first time I met an sketched with Liz Steel !
It was my first Sketchcrawl and I had only just begun drawing watercolour pencil. I am not sure if my drawing style has changed – but my confidence in use of colour certainly has !

Urban Sketchers Australia – Newtown

 

On a damp day in Sydney, nineteen sketchers met in the inner city suburb of Newtown for an Urban Sketchers Australia, Sydney event. We immediately headed a block away from busy King Street and scattered in the backstreets, sketching together and in small groups from 10 to 12.30.

Newtown is an inner Sydney suburb that went through (and still is going through) a transformation from a working class to a trendy cosmopolitan one. It is eclectic, individual, and unusual. It has a wide variety of 19th century commercial street architecture and includes a vast array of styles from high Victorian gothic, Queen Anne revival and Italianate. There are restaurants, cafes, bars, hotels, retail stores, book shops, fashion designers and food shops.

In the area we were sketching in there we got to see the back of buildings with their pipes, chimneys, garages back stairs and doors. The buildings are higgledy piggeldy, and the rooftops are so interesting to see. It was difficult to know where to begin.

On the day, the weather chose my scenes for me.

 

The first ink drawing was a quick one, just to set the scene for the place and day. This is how I like to approach a day sketching outside. I would like to show where I am first before throwing myself into the detail. I am trying to give context on my page by doing this. It is something that I discovered when doing my Sketchbook Project last year “Travelogue: Paris 2007”. I made a sketchbook of my 2007 holiday to Paris, as if I was actually there, but from photographs and diaries.  In 2007 I was not drawing as much as I do now, so I wanted to think about what I would have done, and prepare for future travelling.  I noted down my thoughts in the sketchbook along the way.

I will get to try this in July when I go to London and Barcelona !

I was able to sketch the above scene sitting down on a paper bag (wet ground), with a umbrella propped up over me, held under one arm. It rained lightly for about half of this first drawing. Not enough rain to wet the paper, but enough to make it damp. I could still draw in ink on in. Then I added watercolour pencil from the brush (as if the paper needed more water on it!). Then the rain stopped, I put my umbrella away and finished it.

I walked a few meters to sketch the pink building in the photo below , but was so overwhelmed by it, that I turned around and saw drew this park bench. It is obviously someone’s home, with its collection of flattened cardboard boxes. I think that we were all very aware of it all morning. I had been drawing the backs of houses previously and this was someone’s entire house. Very sobering.

It was then suddenly 12.30 . We all met up to show and discuss our sketches and to go to lunch. See the other people’s results from the day as they go online over the next week at Urban Sketchers Australia.

Our sketchbooks – all shapes, sizes and styles

Urban Sketchers in Sydney in front of a building that many people sketched on the day

I sketched my lunch and also did some more sketches on the train on the way there and back

 
 
 
 
 

my urban sketching weekend

My urban sketching weekend

Over this four day Easter holiday I had the opportunity to catch up with some sketching friends who I had not seen in a while. We originally met as part of Sydney Sketch Club and now have our own social get togethers as well, where we catchup on life, families, travel. And of course, we ALWAYS have our sketchbooks with us. On Saturday Kaz, Meegan, Lisa & I spent the day in the Sydney city, sitting in a well-lit area of a shopping centre food court, with views out to the park. We each brought along a sketching project we were working on and ate, sketched, and talked from 10 am to 3 pm.  It is great motivation and inspiration and fun.

My project that day was to do some Urban sketching. In the past week I have been doing a few more “studied drawings”, and wanted to use the time on Saturday to capture my day and my city in my sketchbook. 

(If you look at my flickr site you will notice that I have a few different styles of art, and it all depends on where I am , how I feel, how much time I have, as to whether I do a quick sketch or a slow drawing or combination of the two. Sometimes it just evolves! I enjoy both)
 
in the food court Westfield, Sydney CBD

 

 

 
 

On Sunday I met another sketcher, Kathy, for brunch. We are a very social lot!

 I know that I am very fortunate to have people to sketch with. I tend to take this for granted sometimes and when I  get a comment on my flickr site from people who live in smaller towns or do not know other sketchers,  it reminds me how lucky I am.