Cockatoo Island sketching - Alissa Duke

I spent the last two days  on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour. A place full of Sydney history from convict to industrial era and through to the present day, where you wander and explore. While Liz Steel and Paul Wang ran their Expressive Urban Sketching Workshop on the island, I spent the days drawing and taking the opportunity to catch up with my old and new sketching friends before and after the Workshop each day. I could feel the sense of enthusiasm and excitement in the group each time I talked to them. There will be many blog, flickr and facebook posts from the 25 participants from around Australia and the world .

I had put aside these two days take my watercolour pencils to the island to explore and draw on Cockatoo Island. I generally ignored the Sydney Biennale Art installations that were on the island. There is already so much to see and sketch ! The Biennale was launched on the Friday and crowds were expected. But it did not cause any issues.

The weather was spectacular - blue skies and sunshine.
All my drawings from the two days are on my flickr site . I filled 16 pages with drawings

Begin the day with a coffee !!

First drawing was on my coffee cup with Lamy Safari Joy ink pen.

Then a focus on one of the rusty cranes


 

 

and my drawing position - on a bin ! One person stopped to say it was a great drawing. Two people stopped and asked to use the bin !

 

 

 ok - a visit to one Biennale Art installation. I listened to the Artists talk and then watched the video made a lot more sense ! 

my morning drawing - looking up to the cliffs

  

 

and my afternoon drawing. I was sitting in the area I drew in the morning Looking down to where I sat in the morning. Does that make sense?

 

(Note to self: During the drawing, look at page without sunglasses on ! My long distance prescription sunglasses are great on a sunny day to shield the sun and focus on the distance to sketch BUT when I took them off and looked at the page at the end of the drawing the colour and linework looked completely different. )

 

 My quick sketches of the Expressive Urban Sketching Workshop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pyrmont Urban Sketchers event : Alissa Duke

A beautiful summer Sydney day to be sketching outside with friends as part of this Urban Sketchers Sydney event . We started in historic Union Square, and I was determined to only spend a short time here (I could easily stay here for hours) as I really wanted to sketch the Terminus Hotel a few blocks down Harris Street. There is so much history in my own suburb of Pyrmont that I was proud to be sketching  it and see so many others enjoying it as well

 I decided to use my Lamy pen only for this one.

Then after 20 minutes Kaz & I walked down to the Terminus Hotel, a derelict hotel, covered in ivy, and with all glass and tiles still intact. I drew the building in ink from diagonally across the street and then crossed the street to sit opposite and draw some features in detail in watercolour pencil. I could have stayed there for hours......

And then it was suddenly time for our lunch catch up and chat. There were lots of families in the park enjoying the sunshine, so I drew some.

Sydney urban art

In the last two days I have seen and sketched some Urban Art I have seen in inner Sydney Sydney

Yesterday there was some "Guerilla Knitting" around a street sign in Harris Street, Pyrmont. I hadn't noticed it at first, and I may have walked past it many times. A  Red knitted pole and two gloves knitted into it ! The guerilla knitting art appears on City Council Streetscape objects  overnight . Technically they are illegal, but the councils leave them up .

Another piece of art to make me smile (and everyone else) is the 5 storey high inflatable duck that sailed into Darling Harbour yesterday for two weeks. It is part of the Sydney Festival of arts, culture, music etc. 60 000 people watched it sail (paddle) in yesterday. I went today when it was quieter.

I was going to stay home and draw feathers and nests today, but how could I when this amazing sight was only 10 minutes walk away ! 

Sydney ": the joys of urban living : Alissa Duke

I live within a short walk to Sydney CBD and there are many joys in urban living. There is always something to entertain. It is a wealth of visual stimulation for the sketcher .

The sketch below is one day of sketching. I see the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the distance as I walk down near the water. If the weather is pleasant there is a seat or wharf I can sit at to draw. I also walk through major tourist areas, which are full of families and people enjoying themselves on holiday. It is also near major business buildings, so there are lots of workers too.  Last week when I walked past Wild Life Sydney Zoo (used to be called Wildlife World) there was a koala in a tree in a  display area in the foyer. It was in the area before you purchase ticket and was close enough for me to stand and to draw. He was asleep and only moved once to yawn.

Sometimes there is so much to look at it is hard to know where to start drawing! This is at the Maritime Museum for the Classic & Wooden Boat Show this weekend. All the flags are up for the show, but the rest of the scene is always there - a warship at the Museum and  the city skyline. I started this by just wanting to draw the flags, and the it grew and grew....

and the not so great part of city living....

There is a new tower being built on the building across the street from my apartment. They have been working on it for two years. and most happens while I am at work. This weekend the very large crane on top of the building is coming down and being dismantled on my street. Like a giant mechano set! It began EARLY yesterday morning and this morning again. The crane body was taken away yesterday by late afternoon. At the moment there is a pneumatic drill undoing the bolts on the bulding base, which is why I am typing this blog, instead of catching up on sleep !

But overwhelmingly, the joys of urban living far outweigh the annoying bits !

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)

Brisbane, lunch hour: Alissa Duke

I recently spent two weeks in Brisbane for work and spent my lunch hours sketching. I was fortunate to meet up with two Brisbane sketchers JJ and Asuka and they met me by the Brisbane River to sketch. I sat in the the same place everyday and there was so much to sketch. It was wonderful to make these interstate USK connections and I will let them know next time I am going to visit.

35th Worldwide Sketchcrawl

Last Saturday I too was at Cockatoo Island. on the 35th Worldwide Sketchcrawl It was my fourth trip out there in three weeks and every time I go I see more things I want to sketch. Way back last year when we went to the Powerhouse Museum a few times I decided I wanted to draw pipes. I made myself a concertina book to fill with pipe drawings but there was nothing in it till now.

The morning was very foggy but it lifted in time for the ferries to be running and once out there it was a beautiful warm day. Most of these pipes were in the shadow of a cliff, and it can be very brisk out there on the harbour if there is a breeze. On Saturday though, it was just lovely.

There were about 30 sketchcrawlers, and although the island is not that big, people just disperse once you get off the ferry. We all met in the cafe for lunch at 12.30 and there were enough of us to pretty much take it over.  I had another very yummy BLAT. Very generous with fillings!

Pyrmont, Sydney; Alissa Duke

Sydney, inner city industrial heritage. Caneite balls installed in local park (meters in diameter. I will have to go and measure them). They were used to pulp the sugar cane fibre (after the sugar, molasses alcohol had been extracted) to make Caneite (like masonite) in the 1950-1960's.The CSR factory was in Pyrmont from 1875 and played a large part in shaping it. I went to a talk today by the local history group.

Cockatoo Island - Sydney : Alissa Duke

A beautiful sunny Easter Monday in Sydney and a perfect day to visit Cockatoo Island. It is a ten minute ferry ride from Sydney Harbour and is an island full of history- from convict to industrial. The heritage is retained in the buildings and objects of the island. Visitors can walk all over the island and through many of the buildings. You can camp there too.

It is a wonderful place and considering how many people arrive of the ferries, it is very quiet, as they spread themsleves out over the island. A little gem in Sydney Harbour.

We were there only a few hours and I drew one of the many windows on this 1853 sandstone building. It is part of the FrontMachinery Shop and is the oldest industrial building remaining in Sydney.



This is in watercolour pencil on moleskine watercolour sketchbook

We then moved onto the area infront of the campground. There are four large parts of machinery that look like Easter Island statues. They are iron bending machines, from the shipyards.

Hyde Park Barracks Museum

A wet day for week four of my Keeping a Sketchbook course. We had hoped to be around Macquarie Street in the open, but the rain drove us inside. We went to the sketcher-friendly Hyde Park Barracks Museum.
First we sketched in a room with a wonderful array of convict tools on the wall. There is even a little ledge right opposite to perch on while you sketch. We were looking at tonal values this week. These tools with their distinct shadows made a good subject.

From there we went to the hammock room on the top floor. Last time I went to this museum I got waylaid on the second floor and when I went upstairs I was presented with the sight of all these red shoes as other Sydney urban sketchers lay in the hammocks to sketch. (Sydney Urban Sketchers wear red shoes?) I've wanted to get back there to do that ever since. I've also wanted red shoes, but I got them sooner.

So we had a nice relax in the hammocks, sketching all the while. Then I joined one of the class in the corridor doing a perspective study. I sank to the floor to sketch. I think you can see that from the picture.

I think we made the absolute best of a wet day. The buildings in Macquarie Street are pretty amazing too, but inside this museum is something special.

Cabramatta

Probably the noisiest sketching day I've ever known - maybe even the noisiest day. Our trip to Cabramatta was arranged around availability, not Chinese New Year. We'd missed the major celebrations by a week anyway, but hoped against hope to see á dragon'.

Cabramatta is the Vietnamese area of Sydney and a number of years ago was considered a no-go area because of drugs. It's all different now, and its a wonderful place to eat, buy interesting and unusual fruit & veg, and best of all the fruit drinks at Yummi.

There are plenty of seats scattered about, so no need to take your own. Well, dragons! There were several groups of lion dancers, each with two or three lions, drummers, cymbals, and a noisy and extended culmination of firecrackers. We sketched to the beat of the drums and got right into the swing of things.

Lane Cove River

As someone else said, rain, rain, rain. It's raining today & it was raining last week when I went up the Lane Cove River. I may have said before that I belong to the Sydney Heritage Fleet and that means I get the opportunity to go out on these historic vessels.

This time it was a tiny one - the Protex. There were 15 of us on board including the captain. We sailed across Sydney Harbour and up the Lane Cove River as far as Fuller's Bridge. When we got to the National Park, some Fleet members got off, and by the time we sailed upriver and turned around they had a barbecue lunch cooked for us.

Though there were showers from time to time we didn't get wet, and the deep saturated olive greens of the river were beautiful. Although it goes right through the middle of residential Sydney it was calm and peaceful up there. I learnt that watercolour pencils are the absolute best for sketching on board ship, because you can capture the colours as you go along.

more cranes in Sydney

Today when I walked past the building site afterwork, all the cranes were moving . The engines were going, the pulleys were moving and the place seemed alive !

Christmas trees of Sydney - Alissa Duke

There are many Christmas trees in Sydney city - in office foyers, department stores. The Big one in the city is in Martin Place and the Sydney Sketch Club met last Saturday to draw it. A smaller (though still big) one is in my local square. Both very traditional (and not real trees, as it is summer in Australia)

Chemo and Comedians

With all the things going on in my life at the moment I have unfortunately only had a chance to draw two pictures. I went to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital with my dad for one of his chemo treatments – not a lot happens, so I had a still sitting subject matter with my dad and mum.

Then the following week I went and saw UK comedian Alan Davies at the State Theatre. All the intricate ornamentation on everything inside made it so overwhelming to capture that I decided to pick out individual objects and "collaged" them on the pages.