Author / Leonie Andrews

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Posts by Leonie Andrews

I am an artist of the landscape of common objects. Discarded items and suburban life fuel my art practice.
by Leonie Andrews

Greetings from Rome!

Yes, we are currently touristing far away from home, on our first ever visit to Italy. We are in Rome, having started in Milan and having visited Genoa (highly recommended just for hanging around in) and Florence.

As we didn’t do a mass of pre-trip planning, we are pleased with some of the serendipitous experiences we’ve had. Stumbling across the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan we saw both an amazing Carravaggio painting,

Caravaggio’s Bowl of Fruit
Detail from the Bowl of Fruit

as well as the ‘cartoons’ (preliminary drawings) for Raphael’s ‘School of Athens’ fresco. We saw the actual completed fresco at the Vatican Museums yesterday.

The cartoon at the Pinoteca Ambrosiana
You can see the individual chalk marks – yes, it’s behind a massive piece of glass.
The School of Athens, at the Vatican Museums
Details of The School of Athens

And while we had Museums like the Uffizi and the Vatican on our list, we weren’t always sure what we might ‘find’ when visiting.

Piero della Francesco at the Uffizi Gallery
Piero della Francesco in the street, 😉

One of my favourite ‘finds’ at the Vatican were the preparatory models, made of clay and straw, over iron armatures, of angels that were cast in bronze for St Peter’s Basilica. The models were designed by Bernini and to my mind, are as beautiful, if not more so than the finished works.

Thank you to the people who centuries ago decided that these were worth keeping.

Bernini, preparatory models for angels in St Peter’s Basilica
Angel with a walkie-talkie
You can see the bundles of straw under the clay for the arms
Iron armatures
by Leonie Andrews

Back Again

It’s so easy to slip out of the routine of posting regularly,  one miss here, one day away and here it is a month and a half gone. At least I have kept up the regular drawing sessions our Zoom group.

Sketching a ‘concertina book’ I’m working in

The subject matter is generally what is laying on the table when our session starts, like this knife.

Old butter knife

Then there is ephemera. We all made paper party hats for our friend’s birthday.  What better way to remember that day.

Paper hat fun

Last but not least our car ‘mascot’, a ‘beannie’ toy we’ve had for years (and several cars), now sadly faded from sunny exposure. Probably the more challenging aspect of this sketch was drawing the woven tablecloth.

Our car ‘mascot’ Zebby
by Leonie Andrews

Finding space

I had one of those ‘duh’ moments this week when several observations just clicked into place for me.

I was watching a sketchbook ‘tour’ video by British artis Lis Watkins (link below), admiring, yet again, her excellent use of white space and the restrained use of detail in her work.

Borrowed from Lis Watkins Instagram account ‘lineandwash‘

Later in the evening I was sketching online with friends and was really happy with the outcome of my sketch of this bowl of peeled limes. Of course I’d left lots of space around it and felt no need to include all of the bowl in my drawing.

A bowl of peeled limes

Obviously I was reacting to seeing Lis’ work and when drawing objects this approach seems a pretty natural one for me to use.

On the other hand when I sketch on location,  wearing my ‘Urban Sketchers’ hat I often fall into the convention of ‘filling’ the page. I think if you look back to my previous post ‘Practice, practice‘ you can see what I”m referring to. I took a photo early on in the process and the sketch was pretty much ‘there’. I then kept going and looking back on it now, I  realise I should have stopped much sooner!

So this week I’m consciously trying to save some white on my page, while simultaneously keeping sufficient  ‘location’ information in my sketch*.

My latest ‘urban sketch’ at a local cafe on Monday.

I am liking the look of this sketch. It’s certainly a challenge to balance both space and location. I’m sure I can do this.

*If you’re not familiar with Urban Sketchers, the international sketching organisation, it’s primary goal is to encourage people to sketch on location, and that location needs to be visible (in some form) in the sketch.

Lis’ video of her sketches from recent travels is linked here:

by Leonie Andrews

Practice practice

I’m continuing on with my new approach to sketching with a flat brush, just to change things up a bit.

I also finally found the time to sketch from the upstairs gallery of one of our local shopping malls looking out to the view outside.

Getting set up with obligatory coffee and pistachio biscuit

I didn’t manage to snaffle one of the window tables, but sitting back from the window probably gave me a more expansive view of the structures outside the window.

First strokes, I could have stopped here
Finished sketch including background buildings

That’s all I could fit in before I had to go. Now I want to come back and do more sketching from here.

by Leonie Andrews

Zoom zoom

I’ve mentioned the Zoom get together I have most weeks with art friends. This time I sketched the meeting itself.

I’m testing out some materials I don’t usually work with. I’m using hot press paper – I generally use cold press – and a flat brush, not my regular round brushes.

The Zoom meeting, that’s my partner at the other end of the table. He also works with the same group.

If it’s a less than satisfying result it’s because I’m forgetting that I’m doing this precisely because I need to get some ‘brush miles’ up. Without practice and learning how to use these different techniques,  I can’t expect to get consistent results.