A morning in town and an afternoon in the gardens

Here are my sketches from Saturday – another big day of sketching! Morning wandering around town, a spot of architecture sketching, a tearoom and an art store visit before heading to the Botanic Gardens...only two weeks to go to the start of the Great Garden Sketchabout..so trying to get some more sketches in my Garden sketchbook.

From Saturday 12 March - 18 April, the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney will host a free afternoon Sketchabout. You can meet other sketch artists and chat to our Volunteer Guides about the sights in the Garden. The Restaurant will be offering a special lunch and an afternoon tea with a creation by Chef Hamish Watts that's good enough to sketch (bookings essential). For more information visit www.autumnofthearts.com.au Please also check out the BLOG!

a quick sketch of the Strand Arcade while I was waiting for the Tea Centre to open (needed to stock up some of my Earl Grey tea – a citris variety which I am really into at the moment)

I then walked down to the Rocks (actually I should say UP to the Rocks as it is north of the retail precinct) for my second visit to Tara Tearoom. I have to say that I LOVE this place... so excited to find another special tearoom that I can presumptuously start to call 'my (kind-of) tearoom'. Lots of different tea cosies to sketch on future visits. Next stop was a great art store that actually stocks Daniel Smith!!! Wow!

Ok... time for the gardens. First stop was my favourite tree. There are lots of Moreton Bay figs (or similar) in the Royal Botanic Gardens but this one is the best!!! Love all those aerial roots.

I was feeling a little exhausted so I went to lie down on the grass in the shade for a bit. Didn't last long as I felt the urge to sketch. This greek monument I have sketched before and was recently label a coffee plunger here. I have always drawn this looking towards the Harbour Bridge but today sitting under the shade of a frangipani tree on a very warm summers day I was facing the opposite direction.

After the coffee plunger analogy surely it was time for a coffee - so I drew a grouping of palm trees while sipping a take away skinny latte. It is quite fun to be drawing more trees and landscaping...something that as an architect I used to really be unsure about doing...

And finally - I caught up with Alissa at 4.30 and we ended up sketching in the Herb Garden

White Bay Power Station

White Bay Power Station had an Open Day yesterday. It's a huge derelict old place in Rozelle in Sydney, near a major intersection, so I drive by it quite often. By the time I read about it in the Inner West Courier, all the tours were full. Nevertheless we were encouraged to go along anyway and found a comfortable bench in the shade (it was hot, hot, hot) and drew the whole thing. We were able to go inside a few of the buildings and the interiors are not unlike Cockatoo Island.

By way of introduction, I am a teacher of acrylic painting, book art and paper arts. I grew up in New Zealand and spent many childhood holidays in Lyttelton. In my teenage years I spent time in Christchurch and partied with the young people from Pyne Gould Guinness, so the recent earthquake is constantly on my mind. I have lived in England, Italy, and Jersey, C.I. before settling in Australia in 1978.

Welcome!!!

Welcome to the blog for Urban Sketchers in Sydney. I am really excited that over the last 6 months or so we have got together a band of sketchers. My hope is that we can use this blog to share our beautiful city with the world!!!

So please start sketching and posting... And if you like, please introduce yourselves!


If you don’t know me... I am an architect who never seems to stop drawing and painting! I have lived in Sydney all my life and love it!!! Becoming the Sydney Correspondent for Urban Sketchers has really changed my life – being part of such an inspiring group of artists has been a huge spur to my sketching and has also given me the confidence to sketch on location more and more.

I hope to go out sketching tomorrow and post some new sketches but I thought I would start with re-posting this one from a few weeks ago. Here in Australia we have had terrible floods in QLD, NSW and VIC, bushfires in WA and then tropical cyclone Yasi. Now our thoughts are with our friends in New Zealand and those in Christchurch! Our deepest sympathies are with those who mourn or are living in dread of confirmation of lost loved ones.