Parramatta, Sydney Second CBD (Part1)

Hi, Friends, how have you been? 
I'll take you for a walk in Parramatta around Town Hall, the station and a massive shopping mall on Church St.   

Today, now, you and me are standing before the Town Hall. Doesn't it look so significant and historical? Around Town Hall, there are a public library, old churches, many historical architectures, a big shopping mall and the station.

According to NSW State Gov, Parramatta - nominated as the second CBD for Sydney in 1968 - has been one of the successes of Sydney's centres policy (*CBD=Central Business District). The relocation of State and Federal Government jobs to Parramatta was the catalyst for its development. Thus, Parramatta is full of energy : commercial activities, civic and justice precincts.  

Well, after coffee with me, let's go for window shopping.  

Above, a snap shot of shops on Church St. The way straight takes you to the station. Below, a black and white.

Now, Parramatta station is large like Central Station in City. Parramatta lies at the geographical heart of Sydney and is well serviced by ferry, train, bus and road networks. That fact eloquently shows Parra's important role in public transportation and its brilliant capacity to carry both people and business. 

The Parramatta Regional Environmental Plan (REP) forecasts job potential at around 60,000 by 2021 and this is broadly consistent with more recent NSW Government projections. Parramatta has increased jobs in finance and business services and has upgraded cultural and river precincts.

Here we are at the huge shopping mall that stands high just above--or connected to the station. Be carefull not to get lost in it, too big! Let's go to the bridge between two big buildings. Yes, can you see a green line, the right hand of a watermark in the sketch? 

Hey, from here, you can enjoy a bird's eye view. See the people down on at traffic lights! (* I really enjoyed this sketching! Can you recognize the red public phones come up twice in both sketches?)  

Oh, you have to go home. Pick up a train? Take care. 

Church St is also called, an "EAT street". So, Friends, come again. Following posts, little by little, I'd show you nice restaurants, old churches, historical architectures, parks and interesting places in Parramatta!

Indeed, Parramatta has a long history in both colonization and Indigenous Ausrtalian, Aboriginal people.  

Already I  uploaded some sketches focused on Parramatta. 

In addition, I'm preliminary a "portraitist" and "picture book illustrator." If you'd like to enjoy my other work, come over, Sadami's Graffiti.

Friends, have a nice day. 

Come, visit Parra and sketch Sydney's "past, present and future"!

  

References  

Discover Parramatta

Parramatta Heritage Centre 

Sydney Metropolitan Stratedy (NSW Government) 

 

Family time

Had dinner with my family at the beginning of the week to celebrate Chinese New Year. Instinctively I left the drawing till after dinner - nothing would have been left for me to eat if I sketched first. It's every man, woman and child for themselves!! So warm and loving...

Then the next night I had dinner with an old friend at Azuma's in town. We order a yummy array of skewers and a plate of very tender duck confit. At least my friend was gracious enough to let me draw them in before he ate them.

Later that night we headed off to the Metro and saw UK outfit Kitty, Daisy & Lewis. The music is influenced by pretty much all the sounds of the 50's - rockabilly, hawaii'in, country etc. I knew that the three were all brother and sisters, but not until the end of the show I found out that dad was on rhythm guitar and mum was playing string bass. How cool is that? And guest starring Eddie Tan Tan Thornton on trumpet - maybe he's their godfather?? uncle?? As always I forget how hard it is to draw in the dark. This time I could barely see my linework, and then when I attempted to paint - all my halfpans looked the same colour - black! Luckily I had a fair idea the positoning of the colours in the palette box.

Hot, hot, hot, cold!

Spent the day with my family while my nephews are still on school holiday. We first went to see The Art of the Brick Lego exhibition at Sydney Town Hall. I managed to fit in some quick sketches while we were there, but its always hard when you're with others who aren't sketching too.We later headed back to my brother's place, and popped over to Maroubra Beach to throw a little frisbee. The ENTIRE week was sooo hot, but the day we went – it was so cold, and so freakin windy. People were flying kites and paragliding! But I was determined to do some sketching as I vary rarely visit the beach.

33rd Sketchcrawl in Sydney

A small group of 8 Sydneysiders got together for a CBD 'sculpture crawl' to celebrate the 33rd International Sketchcrawl. Following a few days of poor weather we were very lucky to have the rain clear to quite a warm sunny day. It was suggested that we take the challenge of limiting time at each of 3 sketch stops to 30-35 minutes and everyone seemed to enjoy the chance to focus on the same subject/s, yet participants showed a diverse range of interpretation in both B&W pen work and watercolour renditions - firstly of a boar statue at the Sydney Eye Hospital, then moving to an outside area of the Botanic Gardens and finally to the forecourt of an office building named after the 16th Prime Minister of Australia.

Thanks to Jennifer for organising this event!

Customs House

I am have now been back a week from my recent trip which included the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Lisbon – what a blast! Will have to get a group of Sydney Sketchers to go to the next one!

I am even more enthusiastic about sketching on location as a result...and so the first full Saturday I went out into the city. My big post-Lisbon goal is to make time to do more serious architecture sketches in Sydney so here is Custom House.

I have been inspired by others at Lisbon who work larger Florian, Gerard, Eduardo, Marc etc and also seeing the amazing pencil sketches of Katherine Tyrrell (done in an A4 moleskine) when I met up with her in London the week after the symposium....so I have got a new A4 size sketchbook.

The new size is wonderful...but I did get a little bored by the sketch at the end of it because I got into a big of a mess with the setout of the building... but hey - I still had a lot of fun splashing the paint around!!!

Check out my blog post for the other things I got up on Saturday - including my sketch of 3.5 hours in the sun drinking tea and eating scones, buying more art supplies and getting into trouble with the security guard on the Harbour Bridge.

Castlereagh St, Sydney CBD

Yesterday was very cold (is Winter Down Under) but I was able to sketch a little bit on the CBD after work. 

Ink, brush, watercolor on 150gsm sketchbook. 

Elisabeth St, Sydney

Another winter day in Sydney. Brush Pen and Watercolor on Drawing Sketchbook.