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.
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.
One of my first attempts at using a combination of watercolour and gouache in a painting.
Completed over a couple of months in tiny slices during work meetings. Super simple, Bic pen in Moleskine journal
I continued to use mixed media and collage to explore my inner world and de-fang old ways of thinking. I find this format really freeing…there are no rules and I can make my images as strange as my mind.
This year, I delved into the world of nature journalling and fell in love. I can see myself doing a lot more of this kind of work, and I now have a dedicated sketchbook for these explorations. Who knew grey toned paper could be so fun?
I was particularly pleased with the way these bats came out! Nature journalling has helped me slow down and notice what is happening in my own very tiny back yard, as well as further afield.
I played with a curvilinear perspective in my urban sketching practice and enjoyed the challenge. It really made me stop and think. I will definitely be doing more of this type of thing where it fits what I want to capture!
Another challenge has been to add more people to my sketches. I can do passable likenesses of people if I go SUPER slow, but capturing humans in my quicker sketches has been difficult. More practise required on this front, but I am seeing progress. I have added more people to my urban sketches as well.
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
This year, I also finally finished an urban sketching project that I have been working on for a while now to capture the redevelopment of my local shops and playground. I will develop the pictures and stories as a series of illustrated essays in my newsletter in the new year. It‘s free to sign up, so please head on over and subscribe if you would like to see that. They will be posted here on the blog later in the year if you wish to wait 🙂
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!
Click to enlarge
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.
Click to enlarge
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.
Click to enlarge
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!
I have lived in Canberra for almost 40 years and never once had I ventured out to the little village sitting on the northern edge of the Australian Capital Territory. The area was home to the Ngunnawal people until European settlement in 1826 when George Palmer established a station of about 10,000 acres in what was called the Ginnindera District. The Ngunnawal people remained in the area and are a valued part of the Canberra community at large today.
Hall Village was established in 1882 and was named after a fellow by the name of Henry Hall who was the first resident landholder in the district. He lived there with his wife Mary and their ten children.
This was the location of this month’s Canberra Urban Sketchers meet-up. So many options for sketching!
Victoria Street – the main road through the middle of the village. Photo: mine
After a cloudy and drizzly start to the day over my side of town, the skies had cleared by the time I reached Hall and was greeted by this lovely avenue of plane trees. I must remember to head out there when the leaves start to turn, the yellows and oranges will be spectacular!
I decided ahead of time that I wanted to sketch the Anglican church, so after the initial meetup with my fellow sketchers I walked the couple of blocks to where it was located and found a somewhat shaded spot across the road. I was grateful to have packed my comfortable sketching chair for this one!
Me sketching in situ and starting to get some rough guidelines down in pencil. Photo by USk Canberra Admin Mandy
I struggled with the foliage behind the church … I struggle with trees at the best of times, but I was definitely a bit heavy-handed in this case. I am not unhappy with the result though, the dark frames the pale church building nicely I think. If you take a look at the photo above, you will see that I did some judicious editing to remove bushes and the fence to create a more pleasing composition.
The finished sketch of St Michaels and All Angels Anglican Church
While I sat and sketched there were lots of people walking past with their dogs. The dogs always wanted to come and have a sniff around, but the owners were more reticent about bringing their furry friends close enough for a pat. There were plenty of lycra-clad cyclists about too. It was a perfect day for a ride — no wind and not too hot! They went whirring and clicking by, depending on whether they were riding road bikes or mountain bikes, as they coasted down the hill into town in search of coffee and cake.
People started arriving at the church shortly before 1100h for their morning service, and they were very interested in what we were up to. I heard one lady offer one of the closer sketchers some morning tea. They all disappeared inside with a ring of the bell out the front.
As the sound of the bell faded I heard some ladies chatting as they did their gardening in the units behind me. They couldn’t seem to figure out what all these people were up to sitting around with books and paints, but they didn’t come close enough for a chat.
Photo: USk Admin Mandy
By the time I finished sketching the church I had 20 minutes left until we were to reconvene and have our show-and-tell session, so I wandered back down and found an old corrugated iron hall that was currently being used as a craft brewery. I did a quick pen drawing while I waited, which I thoroughly messed up. I had chosen a very awkward position to sketch from…won’t do that again! The picture above is what my spread looked like by the time we put our books out for everyone to take a look at.
Finished verso page
When I got home I added some tone to the pen sketch to see if I could save it, at least a little. It’s still pretty wonky, but that’s ok. I then added my journalling and printed a couple of photos to give some context to the spread.
Click to enlarge
This is the finished spread, with my sketching locations marked on the map.
We had 28 happy sketchers out this month, which is more than we’ve had in a while. Must have been the lovely sunshine that did it!
This weekend I finally managed to make it to see the feted exhibition by contemporary Australian artist Cressida Campbell at the National Gallery. I left it to the end of the exhibition run in the hopes that the crowds would be smaller. After a couple of false starts I managed to get a ticket on the final weekend. It seems many other people had the same idea!
I hadn’t seen any of Campbell’s work other than the images in the marketing materials, but several friends had been to the exhibition multiple times and raved about how wonderful it was. So I was looking forward to it.
This is the largest single artist exhibition that I have ever seen, she is prolific! Something like 140 works were on display, covering a number of themes. I thought I’d share a few of my favourites.
This piece was my absolute favourite! The cat on the stairs captured my heart. Of course!
I loved the shapes made within the roots and foliage on this narrow piece. And the glass is wonderful.
I love watching boats, and these ones made me smile. They brought back memories of watching the boats and ships come and go for hours in Victoria Harbour when we visited Hong Kong a couple of years ago, the the before times. Before COVID kicked in in a real way.
The soothing colours and water captured my attention in this scene. I stood there and let it wash over me for ages. What is it about water that is so relaxing? Even in paintings.
Campbell’s self-portrait. Love the hair! Curly hair is so hard to paint well!
Campbell uses a unique hybrid technique where she inscribes her drawing onto plywood and then paints with watercolour and prints from the incised wood block. I have never seen anything like it! In the photograph above you can see the inscribed outlines.
I was super excited when I came to the end of the galleries and discovered a huge drawing station! The large table dominated the room and the central area was arranged with beautiful ceramics and foliage, and paper and pencils placed around the table for anyone who wished to sit and have a go.
I whipped out my tiny little emergency handbag sketch kit and got to work.
I sat there and enjoyed sketching for about an hour. In that time several people came and went in the seats to my left. One young couple amused me. They each selected a group of jars and pots they wished to sketch and then proceeded to turn it into a competition, chattering and bantering the whole time. I had to smile, but I did wish they simply enjoyed the process and supported each other. Nonetheless…they were sketching! So all good. Another pair were young tween brothers who decided to draw cartoon characters instead and were having a ball.
I was lucky not to be yelled at and ejected for using watercolour in the gallery…usually it’s dry materials only.
This is the first art exhibition I have been to in years and I wanted to capture the feel of all the people in the space. It felt crowded to me having not ventured out much in the last couple of years, but I have seen it busier at past exhibitions. I did this spread from a photo when I got home. I wasn’t bold enough to sit and sketch in the presence of greatness and with moving people!
A week or so ago I signed up for Wendy MacNaughton’s paid newsletter and was overjoyed to see that she is expanding her kids’ online art show/class/club to include some fun stuff for adults as well.. she calls it the grown-ups table… or GUT for short. Which amuses me no end. This week’s exercise involved sketching something each day that delighted us, flowing out of a book she recommended by poet Ross Gay called The Book of Delights. I have ordered the book, and cannot wait to dive in after the fun that I have had this week. I have found it so easy to drown in the sad and the hard things in life, or even just drift by the delightful things as I focus on making it to the end of another week. This week of noticing and sketching has been just what I needed to kick me out of that loop.
Here are the seven little sketches I produced and the things I wrote about each when I posted them to Instagram each day
Monday
CAT FUR – it is just so very soft that it almost defies belief that this purry being – that has five end points, all of which are sharp and dangerous – could be so soft and comforting and sigh-inducing.
Tuesday
SILVER-EYES – This morning a flock of tiny little birds visited my garden looking for bugs and fluff. I always leave tufts of cat fur pegged to the tree for their nests! Tiny little things they are! About 11cm long and weighing 10gm. I love them.
Wednesday
FRESH COFFEE – The new drip coffee maker we bought has a timer function, so we have set it to start making the coffee 15 minutes before our normal wake up time. It is the height of luxury to wake up to the smell of fresh coffee!
Thursday
SURPRISE SWEETS – My latest order of contact lenses arrived this morning with special surprise – a little bag of Gummy Bears! I never buy these things for myself, so this was a wonderful treat. I savoured them slowly. I had to draw the packet because I was too busy enjoying the lollies to think of sketching one!
Friday
DANCING FAIRIES – After the rain showers this morning a couple of female Fairy Wrens came down to snap up the bugs. They were bouncing up and down and fluttering their wings like little dancers. Tiny little puffballs of joy!
Saturday
HAPPY SMILING FACES – I was greeted by my new bed of smiley pansies as I returned from shopping this afternoon. All shades and combinations of whites of purples nodding at me as they were ruffled by the late winter breeze. I could not help but smile back at them.
Sunday
MUMMA SWAN – Today I had the privilege of sketching this female swan sitting on her clutch of seven eggs. She was in a big straw nest at the edge of the wetland, and had just taken over after dad’s afternoon shift and was settled in for the evening. I could hear the froglets ramping up their chorus as the sun went behind the mountains.
The whole spread
I am really pleased with how the spread pulled together in the end … a little niggle with the colour of the swan’s nest, but over all, the seven spots of encapsulated delight gives me a good reminder of what the week was like.
Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook, Carbon ink, Daniel Smith watercolours
A couple of weekends ago I decided that it was time to stop being a hermit and to get out and take a walk and perhaps sketch. My destination of choice was Cotter Dam, which is a 25 minute drive from my place. I have taken up Nordic walking, so I packed my poles and grabbed my tiny sketch kit and off I went. What I hadn’t thought through too well was the fact that we had had a LOT of rain a couple of days earlier. Like 100mm of it in a day. When I got there i could hear the roar of the water spilling over the dam before I even got out of the car. The river below the dam was full to overflowing, though from the look of the debris, the water had been much higher the day before.
Much of the low lying walking track was underwater, but I was still able to head up the raised walkways to the viewing platforms to take in the view. Off I strode, arms and poles swinging and huffing and puffing like an old steam train. I got some amused looks, but I am happy to say I ran into a couple who were also striding about with poles. A head nod and a smile as we passed was lovely! I tried to explore a little further along the river after the viewing walk, but had to turn back because I couldn’t get to the other side of the river where I had parked my car from that end of the trail. Oops.
When I got back to the car park I sat to catch my breath and decided that it would be a good time to whip out my sketchbook and grab a quick sketch in the mist before the rain set in again. The result is the sketch below, which took about ten minutes. It was tricky because the paints were not drying in the cold and drizzle.
Sketchbook: Seawhite Brighton 3×5, Daniel Smith watercolours, Uniball pen
I wasn’t hugely happy with the quick sketch so I snapped some photos to do a sketch from at home.
Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook, Daniel Smith watercolours, Carbon Platinum ink
This one took a couple of hours all up and I decided to include a sketch of a young woman standing on top of the FLOW sculpture that sits just at the end of the carpark in front of the dam. If I were younger and somewhat more nimble than I am at present, I would love to hop up there 🙂 I love climbing on things!
