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.

Just before Christmas....

We had planned to go out sketching in the Botanic Gardens. But in the days leading up to Christmas, the traffic in inner Sydney is horrific and we needed to cross the city to go to the Gardens. We decided to move on to Plan B.

We went to Iron Cove, just down behind the Leichhardt Pool where I used to swim. They used to tie the boats up on a wooden jetty, but they have them tied to a railing now. Not so picturesque, but still interesting with all the colours.

The sky was a bit cloudy and it was very hot. There was a strong wind, and we had to hold our sketchbooks firmly, and even so they occasionally did an inadvertent jiggle. That is why we drew in pencil and finished them at home. In fact the wind grew stronger and chased us away, so we went to Leichhardt (Italian area) for a coffee at the Locantro.

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. 

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.

Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race

On Boxing Day, this is what most people in Sydney do - they either go out on the harbour to watch the start of the race, or they lay back in front of the tv and watch the race. This is the first time I've been out on the harbour to see it for years. Now, I belong to the Heritage Fleet which owns some wonderful old vessels restored and crewed by volunteers. I've been out a few times with them lately and although it wasn't sunny, it wasn't too breezy so the sketchbook wasn't flopping about too much.

I went out on the gentleman's schooner 'Boomerang', which, though it doesn't have sails any more, is a beautifully elegant ship. You can read more about it and see drawings from my November sail here. The sea was a little bumpy, but only a problem when drawing the straight lines around the boxes. I could have even put the colour on, but I was sitting next to a very nice lady in extremely pristine white linen, so I didn't dare get the paints out. (Imagine!)

There were many more yachts of course. The newspaper said that the sea was like a washing machine. We counted 13 helicopters, but I only drew four.

Sydney water scenes : Alissa Duke

For me, part of living in innercity Sydney is the proximity of the harbour. I am fortunate to walk to work along the waterfront.

The weather has been pleasant enough recently to enjoy being outdoors and I took the opportunity this week to draw some of the boats on the inner harbour waterways .

Boats at Iron Cove

I drove over to Iron Cove to draw the boats the other morning. It is on the inner harbour, west of the Bridge. I used to swim at Leichhardt Pool which is on a hill above this little park and boat jetty. It was a lovely spring morning, so I hopped in the car with my sketchbook. The light was a bit flat by the time I got there but I did my best and did some quick drawings of the boats. The pole with the sign is advice to fisherman not to eat fish from west of the harbour bridge because of levels of dioxin in the water.

Marrickville & Tempe

After a hard morning's exercise I went and had some fish and chips at my local fish shop – the oldest F'n'C in Marrickville, so I'm told. They wanted me to come back at a better time when their window is full of fish. So I may return with watercolours next time.

I went for a walk down to Tempe, as I knew the circus was in town. Wasn't sure what to expect, the circus site was pretty small and the weather was a little crappy. But it is a nice spot and plenty to draw. Well worth another visit, but with better weather conditions.

To see and read my full Urban Sketches of Marrickville you can visit my blog site.

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!