Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Urban Sketching in Melbourne


I was fortunate enough to spend a few days in Melbourne.It was even more wonderful that Melbourne Urban Sketchers were having a Sketchcrawl. I had met four of the sketchers separately on my last visit to Melbourne, Jodi, Evelyn, Kym and Angela and now I got to see them all in one place and with another 12 or so sketchers. It was inspirational and motivational to sketch with the group and to meet a new group of sketchers.

The weather was sunny and warm and the day could not have been more perfect. 

I started with a coffee from Brunetti's (we were meeting there) in Lygon Street . I sketched the staff and then took the cup home to draw it later



Then we all  walked just around the corner to the back of La Mama, where there was a courtyard, with LOTS to sketch and seats as well. 




my sketch
I was fascinated by the rooftops and brickwork of the back of the shops. We were going to be there for two hours and I quickly realised that I was not going to have time to be able to get a lot of the scene onto the page. I think I decided (sort of) to feature a bit of texture and colour.  I  used my watercolour pencils (decided not to use ink) in my Moleskine accordion style watercolour sketchbook (special Barcelona edition) . This style of book let my lines wander across the pages . 

some of our sketchbooks 

We kept sketching through lunch, with the tables covered dominated by sketchbooks more than food at times


my pencils overtaking my plate


lunch at the Lygon Food Store


The rest of my Melbourne urban sketching ........

after lunch we visited urban sketcher Jodi Wiley's exhibition at a cafe/gallery (and sketched it)


and then  Melbourne ... everyday life