Edwin St, Mortlake, NSW

The last onsite painting in my series on the ANZOL paint factory.  I drove by and saw the fence posts going up to block off the abandoned houses in Edwin St beside it. The whole lot is being demolished to allow for the building of 400 units.
Especially sad to see the weatherboard house on the right going under the bulldozer... the guy who lives across the road from it told me it’s the oldest house in the area. I love the peeling paint and the carving on the front under the roof. It would have been lovely in its day! By the next morning it was all boarded up, so lucky I had the time to draw it then!

Handmade House in Bush, "Kangaroos, Wombats are Next Door"

Hi, Friends, did you enjoy your Easter Holiday? We had a great time in the "BUSH" (= "wild or uncultivated country," in Australian English). We had to drive down to Town to buy food, see people, sheep or cows. The trees are alive and the creatures that share it all with us are very generous!
One more, yes, Friends, please get surprised that we stayed at an all-handmade house. Thirty years ago, like pioneers, my dear friend's sibling built up the house brick by brick with friends' help on a hill. Tada~~, see this wonderful and super-solid brick house with a chimney and water tanks! What I loved most was that the house has all 19th century setting in it -- no electricity! As if we were time slipping back to a frontier time!

Can you imagine? Oh, everything antique in the house, around the house amused visitors such as a kitchen, an attic room, a loo, furniture, coal irons, oil lamps, a white tin pail bucket etc, etc, Hail the builders' frontier spirit!

I'll take you into the house.
Here, a kitchen has a very old fashioned atmosphere. What would you like to cook for dinner? I've also learned how much important water is in bush. We tried to save it as much as possible. 

Now, let me take you to upstairs. Watch your steps (no handle!). I've loved this attic bedroom so much. You cannot imagine how much I got excited to sketch this room and its light! Hope you can feel the mood.

BTW, an out side of the house, I picked up a small animal's skull, old and broken. I googled a rabbit, a possum, a kangaroo, a wombat, a flying fox, a sheep, a dingo, a cat, but none of them seems to match that skull (*or simply because my lack of knowledge of animal anatomy...) Mystery?! Does anyone have an idea?  

In the bush, kangaroos and wombats are next doors. I've found that kangaroos' grey is camouflaging them in the bush, because gum trees and eucalyptus tree trunks are grey! It was very hard to tell kangaroos in trees. Some brave kangaroos came to the house, just under our window or even at a door! Wow!! They quickly skipped away from us, when we looked at them. So, all my sketched kangaroos are back figures.
In bush walking, the friends said, "Wombats put (their pulled down) trees over their holes and cover it." Oh, I see. But trees were too big and too clear. I said, "Well, in my eyes, it's more like showing off their house number plates, not cover-up!" We giggled!

When a night came, so many stars came up. Those dark starry skies were incredible. Interestingly, when the bright moon rose, the stars lost shining and the dark sky got brighter.  
Then, a chimney was so pleasant in eye and for heart. Come closer and make yourself at home. Relax! (*Under a lamp, in the nearly darkness, I made this image! But an enhanced value worked well. Hurray!) 

Each of us said, "I want to stay here more and don't want to go back to Sydney!" at the end of holidays.

It was wonderful to stay in a countryside. My picture book mentor Ann James is so glad to know this experience has enriched my images. Great inspirations for illustration!! Friends, go to the "bush" and sketch anything that interests you!
Friends, Happy Painting!

A personal worldwide sketchcrawl (Part 2)

I had already completed half of my personal worldwide sketchcrawl by the time I arrived in Paris from the US (see Part 1: http://australia.urbansketchers.org/2014/04/a-personal-worldwide-sketchcrawl-part-1.html).  It was early on a Sunday morning and, despite the jet lag, I had an afternoon meeting with some Parisian urban sketchers to look forward to (thanks again Liz Steel for the intro).

It had been the Paris Drawing Week (la semaine du dessin) and amongst the activities a drawing exhibition of classical “masters” was being held in the Palais Brongniart (former stock exchange). So a group of sketchers decided to meet at a cafe beside the exhibition building and avoid the entrance fee by sketching the building instead, and/or the environs.

As it happened we never quite left the cafe. We chatted, drew what was in view, including each other, and enjoyed the afternoon. It was a perfect unwind and introduction to a new time zone for me. And great to meet such talented and interesting people.

Here is my drawing of “not the Palais Brongniart” (it was behind me from where I sat – although the statue is just behind the building in question). :-)

(Confession: I mis-spelt the name of the cafe, it is Le préaumur).

And here is proof that I was there: Marion Rivolier's lovely sketch of some of the group in the cafe:

Then a week of work, including quite a few trips on the suburban rail line (RER) where I could practice sketching my fellow passengers (especially helpful when they were asleep). 

And I still had another Saturday in Paris before heading off to Germany. It was a perfect Saturday afternoon (that had been predicted to be rainy) when we met in Le Musee de la chasse et de la nature (museum of the hunt and of nature). This former private home and collection of guns, hunting trophies, taxidermy, art and kinda weird stuff provides a fascinating range of opportunities to sketch. I started with the large stuffed polar bear (in ink, because the attendant was insistent that no paint was allowed in the museum - and any pencil shavings must not be dropped on the ground!):

Then I settled into a comfy chair alongside the grizzly bear. As it happened there was an “artist in residence” (literally: http://culturebox.francetvinfo.fr/poincheval-lhomme-qui-vit-dans-lours-au-musee-de-la-chasse-152777) inside the grizzly, and the kids were having conversations with him. This is the view from the other side. I had no idea the artist was actually inside!

When the museum closed we all got together for a drink at a nearby cafe. This time a) Marion was travelling so was not available to sketch the group and b) I remembered my camera, so here we all are:

And then a bonus activity, sketching a live model at the classic art school, La Grande Chaumiere. It was an "open night" before start of the next semester so a few of us travelled to the left bank for the free class. The model moved constantly in response to poetry and music that was being simultaneously performed. Very tricky to sketch fast enough, and well beyond my skill – for the record here is a selection of what I captured:

And that was the end of my Paris sketching. I took a train to Germany the next day, and worked through until my flight home - and a familiar view of the back of an airplane seat.

No chances to sketch in Germany this time - but I will be back in Munich in May, and I see they have an active USk group...

:-) 

Lionel