Newtown

Sketches from last month's USK day at Newtown. It was a wet day but nevertheless, it was still a good sketch outing with great enthusiasm from everyone. A friend and her young daughter joined me for a couple of hours and we did some drawing from a small coffee shop along the main street when it started to rain. I caught up with the rest of the USKers after the rain stopped for a little more sketching and lunch.

Some more sketches from Newtown

a little late in sharing these...sorry!

From Ethna:

In spite of many visits to Newtown, I had never ventured far from the main thoroughfare of King Street, so it was exciting to plunge into the back streets and lanes of this lively suburb with the Urban Sketchers group in Sydney.
I'm often attracted to the narrative of the place when I'm looking for inspiration........so the open gate to a house here made me stop and I felt I'd found my sketch.....someone perhaps had just left through that gate, or someone was about to go in......
Cars abound in these narrow back streets so between dodging both them and a few showers, I managed to get something done........

Further down the lane I saw two apartment blocks very close together with a bit of sky inbetween (that blue sky is wishful thinking). It's amazing that even with all the bricks, concrete and glass, a bit of greenery from a balcony or aroung a corner somehow pops up and tends to soften the view.

From Peter Rush:


Looking down Victoria St.
The Sydney Urban Sketchers met up this month in my home ground - Newtown!

Newtown is well known for its urban grit . It's a feast of graffited back lanes with exposed pipes and ductwork behind the busy shops of King St. Perversely I couldn't help myself and sketched a remant of it's arcadian origins. This church is famous for its overgrown cemetery - well worth a visit for a future Urban Sketchers meet up.

USK SYD Newtown Photos

Great day on Saturday despite the rain in Newtown...here are a few photos.

The hardy sketchers sat out the little shower under their umbrellas, others went to the nearby Pie Shop,. At 12.30 we had another wonderful show and tell session - we shared our work standing around in a circle (like the NYC group do) and then got the group photo of the combined sketches afterwards.

It was time then for us all to get out pies (please note these are MEAT pies - yum! they were great) and then a number of people were to be seen in the local art store!
Great day- thanks to all that came and made it such a success!

BTW- Saturday 13 is the International Sketchcrawl and I will be in Melbourne. If anyone in Melbourne is interested in coming along we will be meeting at 10.00  at the giant 'wave' sculpture in between the Art Centre and Hamer Hall. Thanks to a number of local sketchers for helping in the organisation of this. Leave me a message or email at lizsteel (at) gmail (dot) com if you want more details.
attempt at a second one that I didn't finish) This is the most outrageous building! Love it!

The pink building in Newtown

It is nearly impossible not to want to draw this magnificent example of the architecture (and services) of the back lanes of Newtown. This was my effort from todays wonderful (but rain affected) USK SYD event.

USK SYD event April 6 in Newtown

Newtown Post Office

Here is a sketch that I did in 20 minutes (before meeting up with friends for lunch) It was a very rushed sketch but a lot of fun and I did it from the comfort of a plastic crate that was sitting on the side street. I did another version later at home- which you can read about here

Drawing Architecture

Over the last couple of months I have been spending time developing my architectural drawing skills. It's not something I am completely comfortable with drawing compared to figures. So there was a lot to learn and plenty more to develop and carry out. If anyone is interested in reading about my study please visit my blog. Cheers! 

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!

Trocadero again

I want to draw this amazing building again and again. On Monday we went to a cafe opposite and took our time in drawing a section of it. This is the central section of the upper floor where a bay window area is standing out from the rest of the building. It is very long and narrow and the main concern was to get it narrow enough to show how long it was. I'd love to be able to have a look out from that little top balcony up by the roof line.

This building is in King Street, the main street of Newtown, on 4km from the centre of Sydney proper. It was once a dance hall and has been abandoned for many years up until recently. You can see more here .

The paint job they have given it is very bland, though there are two shades of cream. I enhanced them a bit for the sake of the picture.

Newtown primary terrace

This corner terrace house is just off King Street Newtown. I went up there on Sunday morning to sit and sketch it while there were not so many people about. It's all in the primary colours. Walls are cerulean blue with phthalo blue trim & some sap green, the door is cadmium yellow with a cadmium red curtain.

The house is very close to the train line. The wall that is out of sight on the left has the leafy pattern continuing along the wall that can be seen from the train. You might see it if you're coming towards the city, just before you get into Newtown Station.

This is what I love about Newtown. Its so colourful'.

2012 Sketchbook

As mentioned in a previous entry I completed my first Urban Sketches book end of 2011. Well, I am happy to say I have made a good start on my new sketchbook. My theme is Scenes From A Bus Stop. Most will still be of Marrickville and the surrounding inner-city suburbs, but as I catch public transport quite regularly, there will be the odd other location in Sydney as well. I'm still sticking with the artline pen and waterbrush pen combination, as I quite like it. I've also decided to "square off" the scenes too. It keeps each page scene and looks neater.

I had to draw this Newtown scene over two days. The first day my bus came quite promptly, which is unusual for this route (370 - I'm always waiting forever). So I came back the second time as part of my exercise/walk. However, the second time was so much busier with so many cars and people it made me a little frenetic in my actions trying to finish the drawing at the same pace.
This was the return trip on the 370, and is what I'm use to, I had plenty of time to finish this sketch. I think these are fire hydrants.

Newtown Post Office

Early in the week Alissa and I had a late lunch at Cafe C (with the red chairs) where we had a great view of the Newtown Post Office. This is my local post office - you can often find me standing in a queue there.
We ate hamburgers - mine was a lamburger - very delicious. Later I had a berry frappe that was too delicious to draw. I had to drink it right away. Cafe C is a great cafe. They didn't mind us sitting there taking up a table in their busy cafe for much of the afternoon.

Two Red Chairs

In Newtown there is the best button shop in all of Sydney - no contest. It is called All Buttons Great and Small and it opens at 10 am. On a Tuesday I have an 8.30 exercise class for an hour, so if I need a button, I have to have a coffee while I wait for the shop to open. That's what took me to Chill Cafe, when I did this drawing. The previous week I'd also been to Cafe C. where the cups were also white and boring, so I'd enjoyed drawing their red chair.

I had not had time to sketch the red chair at Chill Cafe, so, being in need of a button, I was back there and this time drew not only the different style of red chair there, but another the same as the one at Cafe C.

Newtown Station

I was wandering home the other day and I noticed there was a comfortable seat right opposite Newtown Station so I sat down to sketch it. It's a funny old station building for a very busy station 4km from Sydney city centre. All along beside it is boarded up now, as they are finally renovating it in several phases. The heritage buildings will turn into a 'retail opportunity'. Who knows what they will do to it. They had a public meeting about it, but they only put up the notices an hour or so before it began. Strange. I had to dodge the buses (visually) while I sketched as it was morning peak hour and this is the intersection of two very busy roads.

Coffee shops of Newtown - Hoochie Mamma

Hoochie Mamma is in Missenden Road, right near the big medical centre. I'd never been in but I'd already rejected two other local coffee shops to draw in - white cups & visually boring food. Struck the bonanza at Hoochie Mamma. Beautiful tawny orange cups and so much gorgeous food. Heading for the medical centre, I'd given myself a special dispensation to have chocolate. I chose a Hoochie Mamma made caramel slice. With all the drawing, I had to rush it and it was soooooooooooo good. I think I deserve another one.

Coffee Shops of Newtown - Cafe C

This week I'm doing the coffee shops of Newtown. Started on Monday at Cafe C, and realised I'm bored, bored, bored with white cups. So I drew the red chair. Liked the pale violet colour on the blueberry bagel (with cream cheese). The bagel was cold by the time I ate it. They DID offer to warm it up but by that time I needed to eat and go.
I always leave red lipstick on white coffee cups (or tea) so it was a good balance on the other side of the page for the red chair.

Newtown at night

A local church & cemetery which is popular with artists, goths and the like.
In the adjoining hall, friends were performing a small rehearsal concert before they headed off to compete in Japan. Good luck guys!

Transco building

This building is across the back lane and along at the corner. I can see the top of it from my courtyard. On Friday (a sunny day in the middle of winter) I was going to go up to the park to draw, but I saw my washing blowing about & thought I'd sit outside for a minute to see how cold it was. It was beautiful, so I decided to stay put and draw what I could see.

This building is inhabited by photographic studios and graphic artists. I walk past it up to King Street and notice it has several cameras mounted outside, watching our every move.

St Stephen's Church Newtown

This gothic revival church is very near where I live. I went up there the other morning and sat in a stiff breeze to draw it. I had to sit quite close or it would have been veiled by trees. It sits in an old graveyard with a magnificent Moreton Bay fig tree. You can see more images here. It's a picturesque place where there are often those huge trucks that show that a film crew is there.

This isn't the best viewpoint, but it was the one that had the best light at the time. I'll go back and draw it again from different angles at different times of day in the future when it's a bit warmer and less windy. I did another drawing there in the summer when it was cool under the trees.