Australia Technology Park

Fellow USK, Lisa Foong and I met up last Saturday to go to the Finders Keepers markets but also planned to do some sketching as well. The Aust Tech Park (ATP) is located right next to Redfern Station and in its former life was the Railway yards for Sydney trains. For those who watched the Sydney based series of Master Chef that is where it is filmed.

The big old wonderful bricked building have found another lease on life as a convention centre, with smaller IT research organisations seeming to have office space there as well. Like Cockatoo Island a lot of the heavy machinery is still there, pride of place for everyone to enjoy, especially us sketchers. I don't know why I love drawing them so much.

Plus there was an old red rattler carriage on display outside as well.

We had a peek inside one of the buildings which seemed to be the old metalworks area. It looked like a section of it was still in use but the rest housed all the old tools and machinery. It was locked but the security guard did say it was open to the public during the week, and in a few months time it will be open on weekends too! How exciting for us sketchers.

Hyde Park, Sydney

Finally managed to get to another USK event, and it was a lovely day in Sydney's Hyde Park. Could only stay half day so only managed two, would have loved more time tho.

Lately, when I do find time to sketch outdoors I am trying to inject more contrast in my pictures, and create more depth of perspective, but its still a work in progress. An enjoyable work in progress tho.

Cheers,

Meegan

Oh, and both pictures were done in watercolours/brush and colour inks/dip pen.

You Am I

I saw one of the best rock and roll bands this country has ever produced last night at the enmore. Normally I'm quite satisfied with drawing one or two sketches, but I felt compelled to do more. They played two albums worth, so I had plenty of time to sketch. Here is a selection, for more please visit my blog here. Cheers, Meegan

The Black Angels at the Enmore

Last Saturday night I went and saw an American band called The Black Angels. Their style of music is very psychedelic, grungy, bluesy rock and roll. I am reminded a little of Jefferson Airplane and the Doors. My friend and I sat upstairs at the Enmore Theatre and right at the front. I dont normally like sitting down for gigs, but for me this kind of music is a "chill out" sound.

I took my sketchbook with me and a cheap throw-away Japanese brush pen. I must wrack my knuckles (is that a proper saying?) each time I go out with a half-dried up pen!! Its the equivalent of not throwing out old milk, every time you go to use it only then you realise it needs to be replaced.

This brush pen was already on its last legs when I took it with me, so as I am drawing the Black Angels in the dark, wondering why I couldn't see anything definitive on my page, it was because my pen was drying out.

Having said that, I think the blurry, washed out effect suits their music. So there's always an upside to everything I suppose. To see a couple more visit my blog here.

Cheers,
Meegan

Drumming in Abu Dhabi

In February I was given the exciting opportunity to travel to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to play with TaikOz. Most of the time we had rehearsals and the actual performances. But I managed to sketch inbetween everything and in the afternoons when we had time to ourselves. Here is a selection of my sketches, if you would like to see the rest please click on this link to my blog post.

Cheers,
Meegan.

USK Paddington Reservoir Gardens

It was a much needed day out of sketching for me, and although Sydney was thrown into 40˚ heat leading up to our first Urban Sketchers Australia meet up, the gods were fairly decent towards us on the day. The gardens are a lovely refuge in the inner city and even though there was a constant stream of visitors we could still spread out and enjoy ourselves. It's also one of the few public places that provides free reading material and cabana beach chairs!

I brought along my Derwent inktense pencils, a couple of W&N colour inks and my W&N watercolours, and I was also drawing in a large format Hahnemühle sketchbook. I always apply my colour washes first and then my linework, and sometimes I look at my finished colour washes and think "does it need linework?" So I attempted one with and one without.

I guess they both work well, but it is nice to know I can create pictures without feeling the need to add linework. I created these pictures by using my Inktense pencils first not just to establish structure but for colour, and instead of using water to spread the colour, I used my watercolour set instead. So I think it retains enough linework but in a more subtle way.

So it was nice to start to my first USK Australia meetup by breaking some new ground. Looking forward to the next. For more of my work please visit www.scratchyas.com

Taiko team up

Over the last month Australia’s TaikOz and Japan’s very own Kodo have been touring the country together, both groups specialising in Japanese taiko drumming. It was a brilliant concert, it was so full of energy and the character of both groups came through. Here is a snippet of what I drew that night, if you would like to see the rest of my drawings please visit my blog. Cheers!

More from Rookwood

I dont know what it is about cemeteries that I enjoy drawing but Rookwood has always been on my checklist of places to draw, so when the Sydney Sketch Club headed out for its Open Day I thought it was a great opportunity.

Although I never managed to actually meet up with the other sketchers (due to my inability of reading maps and understanding bus shuttle services) I headed up to the older Anglican section. Many of the graves in this area dated around the early 1900s and many seem to be neglected, which from an artistic point of view, is appealing.

As sad as it may be, some of the graves I saw had flowering trees growing from it which I thought was really heartwarming, and the weather was so perfect it was really peaceful and pleasant sketching away from all the noise. I couldn't think of a more idyllic location.

The last place I visited seemed to be an area dedicated to fallen Australian soldiers with a simple, but striking memorial called The Crown of Thorns. It goes to show how big Rookwood is, I used to come quite regularly with my family, as part of my culture's customs, but I never knew of this area.

The deceased are just as interesting as the living.

Random ramblings

Work has been frantic lately and I realised I have all these one off sketches I have done over the last month and not uploaded them to anything. They are all disconnected from each other but worth sharing.

Still thinking about my architectural struggles, I took my sketchbook with me on a grocery run and stopped at a local park to draw the aquatic centre. I spent a few minutes studying the scene before launching into it, reading the patterns, etc. It worked out okay but it is very clinical and lacks a lot of character.

Catching a bus all the way from town in peak hour on a rainy day can be a very long journey. Initially I was going to draw whatever I could see out my window whenever the bus stopped, but as the bus filled up that became more interesting.

Met up with a few other Urban Sketchers on the nastiest last night in winter, what a performance Mother Nature put on. We found some refuge on the ferry pier, and I found the rain splattered windows looking out across to the Opera House really exciting. It was like an Impressionist's painting because it was softening the definition of the scene.

The first Sunday in Spring was too good to stay indoors, so I headed out for a few quick sketches. I had thought some more about my architectural studies and wanted to practice another approach. I hate putting in pencil lines but obviously the benefit of that is everything is in proportion and it all fits on the page. To avoid that I decided to paint very faint gestural strokes enough to give me some guidance. It seemed to work quite well, and by doing that it also took the pressure off "will it fit? have I left enough room?" and can now enjoy the sketch more thoroughly.

I did a two stage breakdown of another building (from a photo) on my blog if anyone would like to see it.

Cheers,
Meegan

Taiko drumming in Sydney

I'm a student of taiko drumming and through the musical group TaikOz they have a group of advanced students who take their playing to the next level, which includes performing publicly. Last year they won a very prestigious taiko competition in Japan and have been invited back to perform in a "past winners" concert. So a few weeks before they left they played at St Stephens Hall, Newtown as a rehearsal.

I have only posted a handful of drawings from the night, mostly showing all the different types of taiko (drums) and styles of playing. If you would like to see more please visit my blog or flickr site. Cheers!

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.