Cockatoo Island sketching - Alissa Duke

I spent the last two days  on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour. A place full of Sydney history from convict to industrial era and through to the present day, where you wander and explore. While Liz Steel and Paul Wang ran their Expressive Urban Sketching Workshop on the island, I spent the days drawing and taking the opportunity to catch up with my old and new sketching friends before and after the Workshop each day. I could feel the sense of enthusiasm and excitement in the group each time I talked to them. There will be many blog, flickr and facebook posts from the 25 participants from around Australia and the world .

I had put aside these two days take my watercolour pencils to the island to explore and draw on Cockatoo Island. I generally ignored the Sydney Biennale Art installations that were on the island. There is already so much to see and sketch ! The Biennale was launched on the Friday and crowds were expected. But it did not cause any issues.

The weather was spectacular - blue skies and sunshine.
All my drawings from the two days are on my flickr site . I filled 16 pages with drawings

Begin the day with a coffee !!

First drawing was on my coffee cup with Lamy Safari Joy ink pen.

Then a focus on one of the rusty cranes


 

 

and my drawing position - on a bin ! One person stopped to say it was a great drawing. Two people stopped and asked to use the bin !

 

 

 ok - a visit to one Biennale Art installation. I listened to the Artists talk and then watched the video made a lot more sense ! 

my morning drawing - looking up to the cliffs

  

 

and my afternoon drawing. I was sitting in the area I drew in the morning Looking down to where I sat in the morning. Does that make sense?

 

(Note to self: During the drawing, look at page without sunglasses on ! My long distance prescription sunglasses are great on a sunny day to shield the sun and focus on the distance to sketch BUT when I took them off and looked at the page at the end of the drawing the colour and linework looked completely different. )

 

 My quick sketches of the Expressive Urban Sketching Workshop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cockatoo Island afternoon sketching - Saturday 22 March

To coincide with the first official Urban Sketchers workshop in Australia we are pleased to announce a sketching event open to everyone - both to sketch Cockatoo Island in the late evening and also to provide an opportunity for those that where unable to attend the workshop to check out what was done.

Meeting at 4:00pm in order to catch the end of the Expressive Urban Sketching workshop and then start sketching at 4.30pm till 7:00pm. We will meet back at the cafe at 7pm for a show and tell and finally heading off for dinner for those that are interested.

Please note Saturday 22 March is the opening weekend for the Biennale of Sydney  and it is expected that the island will be packed with people visiting the exhibitions.

There are special ferries operating but you need to book a ticket beforehand for these and might not be still operating at 7.30pm…but normal ferry services will be operating as well so recommend you use those instead. Although it will be very busy we do not expect that arriving at the island at this time will be quite as crazy.

Please note exhibitions close at 5pm.

Cockatoo Island

I have been to Cockatoo Island twice in the last few weeks. Once with the Sydney Sketch CLub and the second time on my own. Love that place so much and never get sick of visiting it. So much to draw- either grand vistas or small details.

I have made to decision recently to start a large sketchbook to use on my sketching days out here at home. I normally only use this A4 sized sketchbook when I travel as it is heavy to carry. But it is so good to have the freedom to work larger.

 

USK Sydney Cockatoo Island

 Yesterday, about 15 sketchers met at Sydney's Cockatoo island (a quick ferry ride in the harbour)for the final Urban Sketchers Sydney event for the year. The weather was all blue skies and sunshine, as summer has finally decided to arrive in Sydney. We have visited Cockatoo Island regularly as is so full of inspiration and potential sketching opportunities

 

 

I always like to arrive  a little early to start sketching before everyone arrives and I start talking. I sat the café with Phil & Chris and looked back to Sydney, sketching the panorama in watercolour pencil. Is was so peaceful.

 

 

 

Often when I visit Cockatoo Island I feel the need to draw BIG-  the buildings are big, the cranes are big . I draw everyday on a 20 x 13 cm moleskine watercolour sketchbook. So this time I came prepared with some larger sheets of paper, Unfortunately, I was in the mood for drawing small....so the papers were left untouched this time. But I will return in the New Year to experiment with size and equipment

 

The Drawing Office is one of my favourite buildings on the island. And that was even before I knew that it was called the Drawing Office and then that just made if more special. The Drawing Office was established in 1914 as part of the dockyards of the Royal Australian Navy, which were based there.I love the colour and textures, the greens and the rust .I have sketched it a few times previously. We only had about half and hour for this one before meeting everyone for lunch.

 

some of the sketchbooks from the morning

We chatted, compared notes on what and where we sketched and the experience of the morning.

 

Liz Steel reminded me that Cockatoo Island was the first place we met and sketched together way back in 2008. It was an International Sketchcrawl and we were the only two that turned up. How much has changed in our sketching lives since then! So many wonderful art adventures, meeting some interesting and inspirational people. There have been opportunities in the art world that I never would have dreamed of.

Certainly my sketching has changed. I think that I am more confident in my line and colour. I feel like I am capturing a lot more character of the object I am drawing. Below are my sketches from 2008.

I can see that my subject matter has not altered at all, and I could have chosen the same objects this weekend.  That would have been interesting!

 

I am still using watercolour pencils, as I had only just discovered them then and am now a complete aficionado.

 

I was using Pitt pens and Micron pens then, whereas now I love my Lamy Safarfi Joy ink pen. The flow of ink off the nib is so smooth and suits my drawing style.

 

I also drew on castoff sheets of A4 card stock then, and now I am up to Moleskine watercolour sketchbook number 37 since December 2008. I will be starting on sketchbook number 38 as I fly home for Christmas in a short time. I sketched at the airport for my Christmas flight in 2008 in the first pages of my first Moleskine. I am getting nostalgic thinking about it!

USK SYD at Cockatoo Island

We finished off the year back at Cockatoo Island on a glorious day. Here are 2 of my sketches from this morning.

Once again a wonderful group of sketchers turned up and it was great to see everyones work at lunch. I had to rush off but I hope that others stayed on in the afternoon.
Here are a few photos from the day....

Reminder- Jan 11 we are planning to go to Newcastle for the day. More details will be posted next week. Hope everyone has a wonderful Xmas and summer break!

Solo sketch on Cockatoo ISland

It was fun to do a solo trip to Cockatoo Island. One pencil, one moleskin. Got there early. Perfect weather. In the zone. Trying some new techniques which I am really enjoying. Good to be back in THAT sketch zone.

A beautiful day at Cockatoo island

Sketches and photos from a beautiful morning at Cockatoo Island with USK SYD last Saturday - as usual great bunch of sketchers and inspiring chats!

Cockatoo Island

I wasn't going to be able to make it for the USK Cockatoo Island day yesterday so with the day off I had last week after Anzac Day, I made a solo trip over to make up for what I'll be missing! It was a beautiful, sunny day and I had the whole afternoon to just explore and sketch. The first sketch was done standing on higher ground in a sandstone covering what used to be a military guardhouse looking out to the southern docks. What caught my eye was the unexpected red container next to all the browns and greys.

For the second sketch, I choose somewhere closer to the wharf so that I can keep on going right up to when the ferry comes. It was getting dark by the time I left. There were people getting off the ferry with pillows and eskies when I was boarding, probably heading to the camp site.

Both sketches were done on location and colour applied at home.

Cockatoo Island and the Pipes Book

 I spent last Saturday at Cockatoo Island. We went out on an early ferry and though it was a beautiful day, it was cold on the ferry. A sign that autumn is coming.  I wanted to do some more work on my Pipes Book. I started it nearly a year ago, but a lot has happened since then. You can see what the cover looks like and read more about it here. It has ten pages in a concertina format and this image is of five of them, pretty much complete. I am keen to get back there and sketch some more, though with winter coming it gets cold out there on the harbour.

I have located many wonderful pipes in my local area, and the book is not totally devoted to Cockatoo Island, so as long as I can sketch outside I can proceed with the book. The trick will be to know when I have finished and leave enough white space, balanced throughout the ten pages.

Just time for another sketch before catching the ferry back to Circular Quay. The sun was hot by this time and we needed to be in the shade, so went inside the Industrial Precinct to sketch another one of the machines there. 

Cockatoo Island

In Cockatoo Island, we had a pretty rainy day which didn't want to let us sketch. In a little shelter for the cars, some of us could refugee from the wind and rain. From there, I sketched this perspective trying to capture the contrasting materials of the old sandstone building and the more recent warehouses in top of it. 

 After lunch, I made my way inside the purple warehouse that appears in the right top corner of the first perspective. I passed some fences an found this this piece of machinery.

Looking forward to the next UrbanSketchers meeting.

Video from Saturday

USK Sydney at Cockatoo Island - Crane Crawl. Saturday 02 March 2013 from Chantal V on Vimeo.

It is very very exciting to have our first video from Saturday - special huge thanks to Chantal for putting this together (and managing to sketch as well!)

Group Photos from Cockatoo Island

Once again a great group of people and amazing variety in the work done....

Next month 6th April - more details soon

Industrial Precinct at Cockatoo Island

The sky was dark when I got to Cockatoo Island. Rather than start sketching outside and getting rained on before I finished, I headed straight for the Industrial Precinct. I had been longing to go back there to sketch for a long time, so I was happy.

Soon afterwards  all other sound was drowned out by the noise of the rain on the roof. The other sketchers soon came pouring in.

I wish I could say I knew what these machines were for, but I don't. I do thank Cockatoo Island for rearranging things so it is possible to get right up to each machine, rather than back behind a fence, as previously.

There is so much to sketch there inside the buildings. I can't wait to go back.

We had lunch on the island and caught the ferry back to the city. We got drowned waiting to board the ferry, as we hadn't realised how many intrepid passengers would be coming off the ferry  to visit the island in such rain.   

Lamy Safari pen and Prismacolour pencils in handmade book of toned papers.

Cranes and Machinery at Cockatoo Island

My sketches from a wet and wild and cold(for an Australia summer) day at Cockatoo with the USK SYD group. We were going to have a crane crawl today but it was just too wet (at times)...I ended up sitting insde the big sheds and sketching the machinery.



Great day - thanks to all that braved the weather! We had a lot of fun...but all got very wet feet ....

The view from Birkenhead Point

Birkenhead Point is a shopping centre that was converted from some old  warehouses in the 80s. There used to be a pub where you could get a BBQ lunch and sit on the lawn & watch the view. The pub has long gone and there are blocks of high rise apartments everywhere blocking the view.

The shopping is factory outlets, so we went over there looking for a few things and planning also to sketch. The shopping centre has been completely modernised recently and we had thought perhaps to draw inside.

Unfortunately the shops were not of interest so we walked down to the foreshore where they have now made a long narrow park. There is a marina on one side and just around the corner is this view of Cockatoo Island  with Spectacle Island in the foreground. I've previously drawn this building, while on the island and also the drawing office, right at the top. And the cranes if course.

So, a satisfactory day though NO new jeans and NO new sketching jacket.

35th Worldwide Sketchcrawl

Last Saturday I too was at Cockatoo Island. on the 35th Worldwide Sketchcrawl It was my fourth trip out there in three weeks and every time I go I see more things I want to sketch. Way back last year when we went to the Powerhouse Museum a few times I decided I wanted to draw pipes. I made myself a concertina book to fill with pipe drawings but there was nothing in it till now.

The morning was very foggy but it lifted in time for the ferries to be running and once out there it was a beautiful warm day. Most of these pipes were in the shadow of a cliff, and it can be very brisk out there on the harbour if there is a breeze. On Saturday though, it was just lovely.

There were about 30 sketchcrawlers, and although the island is not that big, people just disperse once you get off the ferry. We all met in the cafe for lunch at 12.30 and there were enough of us to pretty much take it over.  I had another very yummy BLAT. Very generous with fillings!