Hidden in Rookwood

Last Saturday I went to Rookwood Cemetery as they run an annual installation art exhibition called Hidden. 

But any excuse to take a trip out there to sketch is never turned down. Call me strange but I do love sketching in old cemeteries. It's not that they're creepy, in fact if you get a really nice spring day, like what I had, its an incredibly peaceful and beautiful surround to sketch in.

I usually have a tackle box full of watercolours and colour inks when I draw on location, but lately I have started to enjoy using graphite pencils (3B, 4B) and using a rubber/eraser as a drawing tool as well.

So I would draw a bit, rub out a bit (quite aggressively and leave all the smudges in there), draw again, rub etc until I felt it was finished. Its such fun when being messy is part of your technique!

If you would like to see more drawings from this day, please visit my blog.

Thanks for your time.
Happy sketching!
Meegan

Question - when is a sketch an urbansketch ... and when is it not ...?

Hi Urbansketchers

I am loving seeing all the beautiful sketches from the BCN Symposium! I think the best part about it, even for a non-attender, is you can still be inspired from the sketchers and their sketches. 

In Australia, many of us don't mind driving ... driving long distances with not that many towns in between with signs saying Town A - 300km etc. As a uni student, I remember the 24 hr bus trips we had to take during our summer vacation for our "practicals" and the thump thump thump of the bus' bumper bar hitting the kangaroos at night ... I now here that the companies fly the students! 

So saying that you would drive 500km over 5 - 5.5 hrs in a day with a couple of stops doesn't attract the "you're mad" look that you get in the UK. 

It's a similar distance to driving from:
London to Newcastle, Madrid to Sevilla, France to Bordeaux, Tokyo to Kyoto, Halfway between Vancouver and Calgary ..., Montreal to Boston, New York to Pittsburgh, Mexico to Oaxaca.

I got a little bit carried away couch travelling ...  

This leads me to the question of when is a sketch an urbansketch and when does it stop being an urbansketch? 

This wasn't a leisurely car trip where we can sit for a couple of minutes to take a photo or 10 mins to do a sketch! It's a go ... go ... go ... car trip as M keeps the pace up. 

I couldn't figure out how to draw with watercolour in a moving vehicle so I used the Sketchbook Pro app on my iPad with a bamboo stylus. I sketched the pictures below of the scenery from the car to kill the boredom of a 5.5 hr drive - so it's sketching from what I see. 

I couldn't draw the straight lines of the road so I left it out. The Australian roads aren't bad - but going 110 kmph and drawing a straight line on an iPad is difficult. 

This leads me to my question again of when is a sketch an "urbansketch" and when does it stop becoming an urbansketch as I left some key elements out - ie the road and other cars. 

They took about 5-10 mins and I drew one every hour or so or when I noticed different looking clouds. 

A

PS I bought a A$3 stylus from Miniinthebox as well, and it works well. I prefer the tip of the bamboo stylus for scribing. But I am sitting on the fence to justify the A$30 bamboo stylus for sketching alone. 

PPS I will leave a sketch of the "Feathers" drawer from the Queensland Museum that I did on the weekend, just in case the others aren't an urban sketch ... 

The photo ... 

The back-up sketch ... 

Solo sketch on Cockatoo ISland

It was fun to do a solo trip to Cockatoo Island. One pencil, one moleskin. Got there early. Perfect weather. In the zone. Trying some new techniques which I am really enjoying. Good to be back in THAT sketch zone.

Hello, UrbanSketchers!

Hello everyone!

I am glad to introduce myself to the UrbanSketchers community. My name is Nono Martínez Alonso. I am an architecture student from Málaga (Spain) currently studying at University of Technology Sydney.

First of all, I would like to thank Liz Steel and Luis Ruiz for introducing me to UrbanSketchers.

Here, you can see some of my previous sketches in the last years and some of the tools I have been using in my sketches lately. I will soon post a couple of sketches from the last UrbanSketchers event in Cockatoo Island.

Spain

 

Malaga, Andalucia, Spain

Barcelona, Cataluna, Spain

United States

Design Studio Mid-Term Review, North Carolina State University

Robbie House, Frank Lloyd Wright, Chicago

Brisbane, other urban sketching : Alissa Duke

Other sketches from my two weeks in Brisbane and travelling on the airplane. I did lots of other drawings as well, on planes, beaches at my friends apartment .  http://www.flickr.com/photos/alissaduke/

This is a lovely , but busy area in Brisbane, but I found a quiet place to sit before ork each day and sketch. I was fortunate to have lovely weather. The heat has not set in yet.

The view from my office window. Sketched in biro , over a few days, before anyone else arrived.

Walking along the bikeway on Coronation Drive on the way "home"from work. The light changed so quickly and I missed capturing  the colours I wanted to draw

The view from a friends verandah, looking over Bridbane city. Perhaps the sky as not that purple but the city silhouette was black.

On the bus from Toowoomba to Brisbane - other passengers - in pencil

and at the airport on the way home to Sydney ......(via Adelaide)

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.

Southbank Brisbane Qld

I took the girls to Southbank yesterday, and while they were swimming I was sketching. :-)