Hyde Park, Sydney

Finally managed to get to another USK event, and it was a lovely day in Sydney's Hyde Park. Could only stay half day so only managed two, would have loved more time tho.

Lately, when I do find time to sketch outdoors I am trying to inject more contrast in my pictures, and create more depth of perspective, but its still a work in progress. An enjoyable work in progress tho.

Cheers,

Meegan

Oh, and both pictures were done in watercolours/brush and colour inks/dip pen.

 I too was at the Sydney 38th Worldwide Sketchcrawl in the Botanic Gardens. I'm sketching in a handmade book of toned grounds. I had to choose whether to work consecutively as I usually do, or whether to choose the ground for the subject. 

It had been 46.4C degrees the previous day (that's 115) and the Gardens were looking a little more ochre than green as they usually are, so I chose those colours for the background. Luckily it was much cooler and cloudy, so we went first to the succulent garden where it usually gets very hot, very early. I felt like drawing something hard edged after that, so we went to the statue. And finally we went to a stand of bamboo where we could sit in the shade (sun out by then).

The other two sketches are from another visit to the Botanic Gardens the previous week. I was still finishing my previous sketchbook then, and playing with selective colour.  We got eaten alive by mozzies while sketching the spiral ginger, then we moved on to a spot near Twin Ponds to draw this little woodland area with paperbark trees.

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.

Lotuses blooming in Sydney

For three or four years now I've drawn the lotuses in the main pond at the Royal Botanic Gardens. This year we haven't had much sun, so given a sunny day last week we were down there at the lotus pond. This year they have huge leaves and not so many flowers. Maybe they will come later because it has been so cool.

After lunch we looked for interesting trees to draw. We went on a wild goose chase looking for trees we'd found last summer and couldn't find again. In the end we found some marvellous new ones and I need to revisit them, particularly the one on the left, to draw them in a bigger space. Neither tree had a tag saying what it was.

The last pages of 2011

In a very serendipitous (I never thought I'd ever get to use that word!) way, I finished my first Urban Sketches book on the last day of 2011. I must confess I could not use half the pages in the book as the waterbrushed ink soaked through to the other side. But I have a brand new sketchbook ready and waiting to be used for the new year, and it is definitely of a thicker stock.

However, I am in two minds of whether to keep on with the Marrickville/Inner West theme, as I also have other ideas – sketching from bus stops OR drawing all the discarded junk people leave out on the streets. I've seen some crazy stuff left on the kerbs. Any suggestions/opinions are welcomed...

Have a great 2012 people!!

In Colour

My past contributions to USAust/Sydney have been in black & white and around my home suburb. But I've been doing a few more colour stuff out and around Sydney. So have decided to contribute these to the site.

A morning in town and an afternoon in the gardens

Here are my sketches from Saturday – another big day of sketching! Morning wandering around town, a spot of architecture sketching, a tearoom and an art store visit before heading to the Botanic Gardens...only two weeks to go to the start of the Great Garden Sketchabout..so trying to get some more sketches in my Garden sketchbook.

From Saturday 12 March - 18 April, the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney will host a free afternoon Sketchabout. You can meet other sketch artists and chat to our Volunteer Guides about the sights in the Garden. The Restaurant will be offering a special lunch and an afternoon tea with a creation by Chef Hamish Watts that's good enough to sketch (bookings essential). For more information visit www.autumnofthearts.com.au Please also check out the BLOG!

a quick sketch of the Strand Arcade while I was waiting for the Tea Centre to open (needed to stock up some of my Earl Grey tea – a citris variety which I am really into at the moment)

I then walked down to the Rocks (actually I should say UP to the Rocks as it is north of the retail precinct) for my second visit to Tara Tearoom. I have to say that I LOVE this place... so excited to find another special tearoom that I can presumptuously start to call 'my (kind-of) tearoom'. Lots of different tea cosies to sketch on future visits. Next stop was a great art store that actually stocks Daniel Smith!!! Wow!

Ok... time for the gardens. First stop was my favourite tree. There are lots of Moreton Bay figs (or similar) in the Royal Botanic Gardens but this one is the best!!! Love all those aerial roots.

I was feeling a little exhausted so I went to lie down on the grass in the shade for a bit. Didn't last long as I felt the urge to sketch. This greek monument I have sketched before and was recently label a coffee plunger here. I have always drawn this looking towards the Harbour Bridge but today sitting under the shade of a frangipani tree on a very warm summers day I was facing the opposite direction.

After the coffee plunger analogy surely it was time for a coffee - so I drew a grouping of palm trees while sipping a take away skinny latte. It is quite fun to be drawing more trees and landscaping...something that as an architect I used to really be unsure about doing...

And finally - I caught up with Alissa at 4.30 and we ended up sketching in the Herb Garden