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.

USK meeting Sydney - National Maritime Museum



 

Urban Sketchers in Sydney met at the National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour on a glorious sunny morning. Liz was not able to attend, but ten of us sketched from 10am til 12.30, some continuing on after lunch. Anthony, Jennifer, Annie, Wendy, Chantal, Ethna, Phil, John and Peter are in the photo below. Phil showed great enthusiasm and had a very early start to the day, travelling from Lake Macquarie.

 

 

 

 

There is so much to sketch outside the Maritime Museum, without even entering its doors. Lots of old and new boats, the lighthouse, city skyline, tourists, to name a few. It was hard to know where to begin.

our sketchbooks.

 

 

 I am still on a holiday high, even though I returned from Barcelona and London two weeks ago. Scanning my drawings every night helps me continue this feeling, as does sharing my experiences with anyone who will listen ! I gave an overview of my Barcelona Urban Sketching Symposium experience and was happy to talk to anyone who had questions.

 

All of my London sketches are gradually being put in the SET on flickr 
All Barcelona sketches from the holiday have been uploaded and in the following SET  on flickr

 

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My sketches from the day

 

 I began with a little 1903 built boat, moored amongst the tallships and warships.  I consciously tried to think about some of the lessons that I  learned at the Barcelona Urban Sketching Symposium. For this I recalled the discussions at Barry Jacksons wonderful "Hither Thither and Yon" workshop. I concentrated on the Thither space. I leant SO much at Barcelona, both in the Workshops and from other participants I spoke to.

 

I realised that in my drawings I am building on the generous knowledge and advice shared by many online artists. From Kate Johnson, one of the many techniques I use is the Derwent Blue Grey (not watercolour) to draw the background buildings It is a nice soft tone and colour.

 

 

 

 

 

I then sat down with Ethna and distracted her by chatting. After an hour I moved on.

 

 

The skyline of Sydney. It was 15 minutes til lunch. But I HAD to add the blue sky as it was such a lovely day

A very aggressive seagull at my feet ( I had no food, so I don't know why he was picking on me )

 

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. 

Sydney Inkorporated

That's such a terrible heading... Anyway, apologies for not having contributed in awhile I have been holding off until I got my own blog sorted out.

After my success at Cockatoo Island I was keen to test it out some more - making sure it wasn't a fluke. I had  a quiet week so decided to head out around Sydney. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great - I think I had one or two days free of rain, but it was quite satisfying and am dying to get outdoors again.

St Stephens Cemetery, Newtown

National Maritime Museum

Macquarie Street

Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens

Dixon Street, Chinatown

If anyone would like to see more of my colour inks please visit my blog scratchyas.com  Cheers!

Farewell to the Duyfken

I had to go back to the Maritime Museum last week again, because the Duyfken is leaving Sydney and going to WA for 10 years. She is such a beautiful little ship (a replica) and I've drawn her a few times.
We went on board and there were wonderful things to see there too - wooden kitchenware, I guess you'd call it. Cannons. I took some photos with my phone and I have material there for a lot of still life paintings.

We then went on board the sailing ship James Craig. I've been before and even sailed on her, so while my friend did the tour, I drew a lifeboat. I then bravely drew the whole Duyfen (I've only done sections before - she is so ornate) though I couldn't fit her all in. Drawing so small is not my forte.

The boat on the right is the Tu Do (freedom) which brought refugees to Australia in 1977. You can read the story here.

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.

More maritime museum sketches- and more....

As per Wendy’s post... A group of Sydney sketchers had the most wonderful day sketching and catching up (always about sketching related topics!)
Here are my sketches from the morning.



In the afternoon I headed off in search of a a good tea and scone...walking to the other end of the CBD to visit the Tea Cosy tearoom....





I am shortly heading off to go to overseas for 3 weeks. 2 weeks in the UK and 1 week in Lisbon for the USK symposium so Saturday was a good ‘warmup’ for me. I am pretty happy that I got to sketch the opera house just before the trip. Last year sketching the Opera House on the day after I returned from my big one was very very special! This kinda ties the two together... the sketching journey continues whether you are at home or away.....

National Maritime Museum

This wonderfully elaborate sailing ship is a replica of the Duyfken, an East Indiaman. The original ship sailed from Banten (Bantam in English) in Java in 1606 to Australia where it mapped Cape York. Strangely I was already thinking seriously about a holiday in Banten. I've been to Java but not further west than Yogyakarta.

The Sydney Sketch Club went to the National Maritime Museum on Saturday. The winter has been pretty wet and cold so far, and there's great drawing both inside and out. Lucky for us it was a perfect day. Sunny and 20 degrees. Beanie and gloves not required.

My second drawing was done looking down on this little rubber boat - they tell me it's called a rubber ducky, From the sublime to the ridiculous really, isn't it!