Robertson Studios

I just realised now that I got the year wrong on the title card for this video. Typical. I hope you enjoy it regardless of my addled brain. 🙂

Happy holidays to you friend! I posted this year’s Christmas sketch on my socials this morning and then I thought it might be fun to take a look back at what I did in previous years … so without further ado! (as always click on the pic to see a larger version.)

2024 – Eric the Christmas emu!

2023 – a very Canberra Christmas

2022 – Father fairy-wren

2021 – lounge view post Christmas

2020 – nothing 🙁 too overwhelmed with the pandemic perhaps?

2019 – simplicity

2018 – a pair of Christmas elves

2017 – my nutcracker needed some help

2016 – can you tell I like nutcrackers?

And that’s it… before that I didn’t do anything specifically Christmassy! Such fun to look back. I hope you enjoyed it too

At the beginning of November, I had surgery on my right arm to correct a couple of issues. I was eager to get it over and done with after a bit of a wait, but I was extremely worried that I would have little to no use of my right hand in the recovery period, which was projected to be six weeks to four months long. This would mean no writing, no guitar playing comfortably (certainly no finger picking), no typing and no art, especially not sketching or drawing. Quite aside from attending to myself with my non-dominant left hand! The first week saw my hand being very swollen with limited movement, and my frustration levels were high. By the beginning of week two, I was getting antsy and had a little more movement back, albeit restricted by the splint and bulky bandages, so I did a little experiment in my sketchbook. The page below shows left and right-handed drawings on days eight and eleven. They took much concentration — picture me with my tongue out and going very slowly. I had very little control over the pen and paintbrush! But at least I was creating something!

(as always, click the image to see a larger version)

My next experiment was to fill an entire page with watercolour blocks using only my left hand. So many wobbly bits!

By day 21 post-surgery, I was ready to try sketching my African violets. I was pleased with my progress but frustrated with the jittery lines and the fact that I was getting worn out within minutes. The spread below took me all-day. I felt like a preschooler as I corralled my concentration and attempted to get something presentable down on the pages.

My next attempt involved ditching any pretence of doing precise linework, and I went with a loose watercolour landscape using one of mum and dad’s holiday snaps. Much more satisfying result on this one!

Now, at the five-week mark, I am getting closer to being able to draw a steady line, and my handwriting is far less tentative. I was still getting very worn out with the effort of concentrating on doing so, though.

All in all, my recovery is progressing well, and being able to create something did wonders for my head. My dexterity and fine motor skills are returning little by little, even if my strength is somewhat slower. I am still not quick by any stretch of the imagination, but that will come with practice and putting myself in situations where I can do that…once I get my driving privileges back again! Urban Sketchers here I come…early in the new year!

Yesterday, I uploaded a fresh video to my YouTube channel and immediately realised that I had forgotten to upload the previous one I had filmed, AND had not let anyone know I had uploaded the one before that. There’s also a video I made when I filled my nature journalling palette. Sigh — my perimenopausal brain has failed me. Oh well. I am sure the brain fog will lift at some point.

So let’s fix that, shall we? Grab a cup of coffee and settle in!

July 2022 – February 2023 sketchbook

February 2023 – October 2023 sketchbook

October 2023 – April 2024 sketchbook

Filling my nature journalling palette

Now … we are all up to date! I shall attempt to do better next time. 🙂

We were fortunate to happen across a guitar gig in the city on Saturday afternoon while we were having a little staycation at a nearby hotel for a special milestone. The artist was a Franco-Czech guitarist by the name of Jan Vanek. He is a multi-instrumentalist who lives in France and travels all over the world, sharing his unique interpretations and style of playing. For this gig, he was playing solo and played a variety of recognisably French tunes, jazz and world music, including his own compositions. To say he is talented is an understatement! Technical skill combined with obvious emotional investment and enjoyment of a virtuoso on full display! We were treated to two hours of fabulous music and witnessed an artist completely lost in his music.

Lucky for me I had my sketch gear on me, so I took the opportunity to practise my people sketching as the music washed over me. I managed a couple of sketches before I set my kit aside and lost myself in the music and hypnotic movement of his fingers up and down the fretboard.

Sketch one as I sipped my wine and let the music wash over me.

The gig was at Smiths Alternative in the Melbourne Building. I had never been there before but I immediately fell in love with the boho feel of the bar and gig space. We will be going back!

Sketch two before the brief intermission. I love how sketching during an experience like this imprints my impressions and reactions onto the page. Every time I go back to these sketches I will remember precisely what it was like to be there.

I was too shy to sit closer to the stage and sketch, but thankfully no one sat in front of us.

At the end of the concert, I mustered up my courage, dusted off my high school French, asked Jan to sign my sketch, and told him how much I had enjoyed his playing. We had a brief conversation that flipped between French and English, and I went away energised as I always am after seeing live music.

Here’s a video of Jan playing at a radio station. He played this one during the gig, and I could picture myself cruising into a little French village in a CV2 ready to collect my afternoon baguette from the friendly boulanger!

Jan’s interpretation of Dave Brubek’s Take Five with a percussive modern jazz slant.

Materials

• Stillman and Birn Zeta Series sketchbook
• Lamy Safari with Lexington Grey Noodlers ink
• Daniel Smith watercolours

Urban sketching at Lanyon Homestead

One of the lovely things about living in Canberra is having access to some amazing venues for sketching. This month, our local Urban Sketchers group trekked to the deep south of the Canberra ‘burbs to Lanyon Homestead. Canberra is such a spread-out city that even though there was little to no traffic, it took half an hour to get out there, and I live on the south side already. I cannot imagine how long it took the northsiders to get there! But it was well worth the drive.

The early clouds cleared to reveal a spectacular morning. Sunny weather is excellent for sketching buildings since it casts dramatic shadows and allows for a little more drama in your sketch. The photo above is what I did on location — with the exception of the map and heading, which I had prepared the night before.

This is the final spread with a couple of added photos to help me remember the day and some journalling. The gardens were spectacular, with a stunning display of dahlias on the forecourt. I took lots of photos to use as reference for some botanical painting at some stage.

I took a leaf out of Nishant Jain, the Sneaky Artist’s book, and created a quick watercolour sketch to abandon on site as a gift to whichever stranger finds it. It’s a way to give someone a smile and to give an outward focus when I am out sketching, and it pushes me to do something a little different in a short time frame too. With the economic climate the way it is, not many people are spending on arty stuff, but art has a way of speaking to people and lifting spirits … so why not make a little bit of it accessible 🙂 I pop my details on the back in case anyone wants to let me know they found it, and maybe I will get to hear their story as well. Win win! I plan to do this a lot more.

Food sketching with Sally

I am on leave from work at the moment, so I took the opportunity to catch up with my friend, the very talented Sally Black, for brunch and some food sketching. Food sketching is one of her many artistic passions, and she is very good at it … you can see her sketch on her Instagram feed.

There’s something wonderful about sitting and sketching without rushing — chatting about art and life and comparing notes. She is also kind enough to let me practise my in-person portraits on her. Patient and gracious lady! The only downside of food sketching like this is that the food is cold by the time you get to eat it, but it’s a small price to pay! Needless to say, the coffee is sketched first and consumed hot.

Here’s my finished spread.

If you are in Canberra, I can highly recommend Tinker Tailor in Jameson. Excellent coffee and food that tastes as fabulous as it looks.

It doesn’t seem long ago that I was looking back at 2022, and yet here I am, trawling through my work from 2023. I have completed more sketchbook pages and standalone pieces this year than in previous years, and I have explored new areas of art in the process. It is gratifying to look back and see that I have grown and developed as an artist this year. May it be so in the coming one!

The image below shows my top nine Instagram posts for the year. It‘s always really interesting to see what made it through the algorithm and caught peoples’ eye. It‘s never the ones that I think or, dare I say, hope people will like. At the end of the day, I create for myself, so it’s not a big deal, but it IS interesting.

Here are some of my favourite pieces from this year. As always, click to see a larger version of hte pic.

Remembrance Day is always loaded for me, and I try to use art each year to help process what is going on in my mind. This year I employed mixed media, including collage and gelli prints of old family photographs, and was proud of the outcome

If you would like to look at all of my sketchbook work for this year, you can do so over at Flickr.

My plan for the new year is to start out with a location sketch somewhere tomorrow to celebrat ehte new year and then follow my nose as to how I continue to develop as the year progresses. The things I DO know are that there will be more urban sketches and more nature journalling. What happens between those two is anyone‘s guess! But it will be fun!

Thank you again for reading and for walking beside me this year. It means a lot to be able to share my ramblings and scribbles with you.

May’s Urban Sketching meetup was again on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin. This time we met at the Nara Peace Park and the Canberra Beijing Gardens in Lennox Park. It was a chilly but magnificently clear blue morning that showcased the Autumn colours. Before I show you my sketches I want to show you how beautiful my surrounds were. There were families everywhere having picnics and cycling and enjoying the day! Perfect day for sketching!

The Chinese pavillion matched the colourful leaves.

Traditional Chinese gate to welcome visitors to the park. I was besotted with the stone stairs. The people at the top are my fellow sketchers having show and tell time; sharing their sketches and telling their tales. I forgot what time it was and was still finishing up my painting at that point! This photo was taken from where I set up my easel. The Beijing Garden was a gift from the Beijing Municipal Government, and was designed in the style of the imperial style of the Qing Dynasty.

Two of these lions sat at above at the entrance to the welcome gate.

This was one of five stork sculptures in this group. They watched over my shoulder!

This is the first time I’ve taken my full setup out with me in a very long time … since before the lockdowns in fact! It’s a bit of a fiddle, but it was worth it for the experiment that I wanted to do with the style of painting this time. I needed to let layers dry and work on the two paintings simultaneously, which would have been night on impossible if I was juggling everything on my lap! The drying time was rather slow given how cool it was.

As always I prepared my spread with the title and a little map to show the location. This is the finished spread. The two paintings were done on location, and the photos and journalling added at home.

My experiment this time was to create the painting without using ink outlines like I usually do. I started by blocking in the shapes in pale blue pencil to get the proportions right, and then did a more detailed graphite sketch before several layers of watercolour. I LOVED painting all of the rocks in the staircase!

I had two lovely chats this time. The first was with a shy little girl with a big smile who eventually told me that she liked to draw rainbows, and then a brief one with an elderly Chinese fellow via mime and made up sign language. Whilst these interactions break my concentration, they one of my favourite parts of getting out and sketching on location.

Materials:
Windsor and Newton A4 watercolour sketchbook
Daniel Smith watercolours
washi tape for masking
Uniball gel pen – for journalling
photos printed on HP Sprocket
hand carved M stamp

I am running a little behind with my posts! A month ago, as our local sketching group are wont to do, we met up for a sketchy get-together down by the lake and had a closer look at Blundell’s Cottage. It was an absolutely stunning autumn morning! Not too cold, not too hot, a bit of wind and a stunning sky. We had a decent group out too, considering it was Easter Sunday!

I decided beforehand that I was going to sketch the same thing using two different techniques, so I found myself a sunny spot and got myself set up in my comfy camping chair and set to. I chose a simple front-on view of the cottage so I didn’t have to wrestle with perspective twice over.

Before I show you my sketches, here are a couple of photos of the cottage from outside and in. I share some fun facts in the video I link below, but suffice it to say that I was somewhat boggled that such a large family lived in such a tiny house. I am not a fan of big houses anyway, but this was something else! The tiny house movement has nothing on this.

Taken from a couple of paces in front of my chair before I started sketching. My eyeballs did a better job of seeing in the shadows than my phone did! There’s a door and two windows hidden in those shadows.

A corner of the small kitchen.

One of the teeny tiny bedrooms.

This is what I had on my spread at the end of the two-hour sketching session. The sketch on the left was done by slapping down the paint first and then adding pen and enhancing the details. The sketch on the right was done using my normal method of sketching first and then adding colour. I flipped between the two as various layers of paint dried. And I like both for different reasons. The paint-first method was a lot quicker and perhaps livelier than the other, but I like the detail in the one on the right. I had a couple of minutes left at the end so I also captured a couple of my fellow sketchers to add some context to the page.

When I got home, I added some journalling and photos to finish off the spread. I recorded my process and prattled on a little bit about the various occupants of the cottage through the years. This is the first one of these I’ve recorded. Let me know what you think.

This month — this weekend in fact — we are headed to park on the other side of the lake! I am looking forward to getting out, even if the weather has suddenly decided to be very wintery! I will need to crack out my fingerless gloves and a beanie I think!

Materials:
Windsor and Newton A4 watercolour sketchbook
Daniel Smith watercolours
Uniball gel pen
photos printed on HP Sprocket

Last weekend I took a little trip south to visit my parents in Victoria and decided to make it into a sketching trip as well.

I was working in the new urban sketching Winsor and Newton sketchbook I started last weekend when I drew in Hall Village. I have decided to keep a theme throughout the book to lend it some overall coherence. I am adding a map where it makes sense, a couple of little photos and some journalling to add context to help me remember the day better when I look back through the book later.

My first stop was in Holbrook … Submarine town! I have sketched the submarine before, so I had a bit of a drive around and selected a couple of buildings that looked like they would be fun to get down on paper. I sketched the church first. The spot I chose was in the full midday sun on an unseasonally hot autumn day, and managed to get my arms sunburned in the hour that I was there. Yes, the bush was leaning over like that!

Next, I popped down the street a little way to sketch the Shire Hall and found a nice shady spot to sit under the awning of a pub that had seen better days. My unfortunate choice this time was to sit on the concrete pavement without moving much for the 45 minutes it took me to complete the sketch. My butt, legs and feet went to sleep! When I went to stand up, I very nearly fell over. Good thing there weren’t too many people around! So embarrassing!

My next stop was Benalla in northern Victoria. I did this spread over a couple of days because the weather was scorching, and I also wanted to balance sketching time with time spent with mum and dad. I was chuffed when dad asked to join me on my second outing to draw the art gallery. We sat, chatted, and said hello to the locals, who stopped to see what we were doing. Dad read his book while I was concentrating too hard to chat and sketch at the same time. We spent about an hour and a half by the lake enjoying the morning together. All of those angles and peaks were kind of tricky to get right, so I spent longer on the setup drawing than I normally do.

On the middle day of my visit, we drove to the nearby magnificent King Valley Wine Region and had lunch at the Gracebrook Vineyards. My folks were lovely enough to put up with me whipping out my sketchbook and paint to capture the landscape that spread out in front of us as we tucked into the delicious Mediterranean-style tasting plate full to over-flowing with local produce and sampled the wine. I had a spectacular sparkling Sangiovese/Shiraz that I loved so much that I bought some to bring home with me. Yum!

I struggle with landscape sketches and tend to put in too much detail for the scale of the sketch, so for this one, I deliberately worked at simplifying the shapes and stopping when I sensed that I was fiddling too much toward the end. Nevertheless, I was happy with the way this one came out.

I had so much fun … I’d love to go back on a day that’s not quite so hot, or even in winter, so that I can sketch the fabulous interior of the cellar door area.

Overall, a very relaxing weekend away with family and a productive one at that. I think I need to plan more sketch times when we get out of town!