The Lightship Carpentaria

Just realised I forgot to post my sketch from the National Maritime Museum a couple of weeks ago. I love this ship. It is a lightship. Trivia: a lightship's birthday is the anniversary of the day the light was first turned on. This one was on duty on the Queensland coast for many years, and now is at Darling Harbour. It is the brightest of bright vermilions. It is one of those things I like to draw at least once a year. My waterbrush was playing up and flooding the paper at times. A warning to me to take a new one on my travels.
I drew this back in 2010, as seen here, with the light falling on it in different ways.  Then I turned one of the sketches into a solar plate etching which (so far) I have printed in two different colours.

I am always happy to draw this little ship. It has such a strange barrel-like shape that it is always a challenge.

Sydney urban art

In the last two days I have seen and sketched some Urban Art I have seen in inner Sydney Sydney

Yesterday there was some "Guerilla Knitting" around a street sign in Harris Street, Pyrmont. I hadn't noticed it at first, and I may have walked past it many times. A  Red knitted pole and two gloves knitted into it ! The guerilla knitting art appears on City Council Streetscape objects  overnight . Technically they are illegal, but the councils leave them up .

Another piece of art to make me smile (and everyone else) is the 5 storey high inflatable duck that sailed into Darling Harbour yesterday for two weeks. It is part of the Sydney Festival of arts, culture, music etc. 60 000 people watched it sail (paddle) in yesterday. I went today when it was quieter.

I was going to stay home and draw feathers and nests today, but how could I when this amazing sight was only 10 minutes walk away ! 

It's a long time since I've been able to go out sketching, but Saturday was the day to ease back into it.  We went to Darling Harbour near the Maritime Museum - one of my favourite spots. First we wandered round aimlessly deciding what to sketch. We tried going down near some of the smaller boats, but it proved to be a floating pontoon I stepped onto and the chop on the harbour nearly threw me off my feet.
Finally we just plonked down right where we were. There's something to see everywhere you look in that area. Strangely, right in front of us was this fire hydrant. With my fascination for sketching machinery, off I went.
It was a cloudy day - great sketching weather in fact. It was hot, so had the sun been out we would have been scrambling for shade.

37th International Sketchcrawl, Sydney - 13th October 2012

View from Darling Harbour, Sydney, a photo by david.jack on Flickr.



Darling Harbour, Sydney, a photo by david.jack on Flickr.

37th International Sketchcrawl in Sydney.

To see Australian results: http://www.sketchcrawl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=9866&p=45277#p45277

To see other cities results: http://www.sketchcrawl.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=63

No group photo this year!

To see other years in this blog:

36th International Sketchcrawl Sydney

34th International SketchCrawl Sydney

33th International SketchCrawl Sydney

32nd Internatonal SketchCrawl Sydney

31st International SketchCrawl Sydney

30th International SketchCrawl Sydney

29th International SketchCrawl Sydney

23rd International SketchCrawl Sydney

Sydney ": the joys of urban living : Alissa Duke

I live within a short walk to Sydney CBD and there are many joys in urban living. There is always something to entertain. It is a wealth of visual stimulation for the sketcher .

The sketch below is one day of sketching. I see the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the distance as I walk down near the water. If the weather is pleasant there is a seat or wharf I can sit at to draw. I also walk through major tourist areas, which are full of families and people enjoying themselves on holiday. It is also near major business buildings, so there are lots of workers too.  Last week when I walked past Wild Life Sydney Zoo (used to be called Wildlife World) there was a koala in a tree in a  display area in the foyer. It was in the area before you purchase ticket and was close enough for me to stand and to draw. He was asleep and only moved once to yawn.

Sometimes there is so much to look at it is hard to know where to start drawing! This is at the Maritime Museum for the Classic & Wooden Boat Show this weekend. All the flags are up for the show, but the rest of the scene is always there - a warship at the Museum and  the city skyline. I started this by just wanting to draw the flags, and the it grew and grew....

and the not so great part of city living....

There is a new tower being built on the building across the street from my apartment. They have been working on it for two years. and most happens while I am at work. This weekend the very large crane on top of the building is coming down and being dismantled on my street. Like a giant mechano set! It began EARLY yesterday morning and this morning again. The crane body was taken away yesterday by late afternoon. At the moment there is a pneumatic drill undoing the bolts on the bulding base, which is why I am typing this blog, instead of catching up on sleep !

But overwhelmingly, the joys of urban living far outweigh the annoying bits !

A bit of colour in Sydney

Yesterday at our Sydney Sketchclub Meetup at the Australian National Maritime Museum we had such beautiful weather it was too nice a day to spend in a darkly lit museum drawing things in glass cabinets so I decided to sit outside and draw on the wharf.

Then afterwards I headed over to the Chinese Garden of Friendship. I needed some photo reference of the architecture and motifs for a project I’m working on, but I managed to do a few ink drawings while I was there too. 

Maritime Museum

Last Saturday I took my sketching class to the National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour. It was a beautiful day so we were able to sit outside and draw the vessels. As you see I've put the blue sky in - we've had so many rainy days that when it is a sunny day I feel that I have to emphasise that in my sketches.

The sketch at the top is the stern of Duyfken, a beautiful replica ship. The original sailed from Indonesia in 1606 to Papua New Guinea and came across Australia. It is a full size replica, but a small ship compared to other sailing ships such as the James Craig which I sailed on just before Christmas.

The flags spell out the word DUYFKEN. The Maritime Museum often use ships flags to label things such as WORKSHOP. Much more colourful and exciting, don't you think?

The funnel in the sketch below is from the HMAS Vampire. It has a Qantas flying kangaroo on there. I'm wondering if Qantas is a sponsor of the museum. If not, why? Adds a nice touch of colour anyway.

walking home from work- Sydney

My walk to and from work each day in Sydney takes me past some busy areas. There is a very large busy building site. I can see it all from above from the tearoom at work, but walking past at street level there is boarding that blocks off a lot of the view.



Then I walk past lots of tourist areas, including Darling Harbour, with the day cruise boats and this jet boat. My friends from Brisbane had just been on one of these in Sydney Harbour so I decided to draw it. Then I wanted to include the monorail, then I had to draw all in between. There are so many layers. I somehow did not leave room for the expressway and buildings at the end of Cockle Bay.

It was not what I started out to draw , but this is how it ended. - a slice of Sydney