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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.

Rodin sculptures cross country challenge

I have just been comparing sketches with Carol Haywood of our past sketches of Rodin sculptures.

I wrote about my experiences sketching at the Rodin Museum in Paris two years ago. You can see my sketches here.

If you would like to join in sharing your sketches of Rodin sculptures please do so and link in so we can all see them.

Before I go here is the one that I didn’t have time to sketch at the Art Gallery of South Australia when I visited recently.

August Rodin, Flying Figure, large version 1890-91, enlarged 1895?, bronze,
(cast George Rudier Foundry, Paris 1968)

Seredipitous conjunctions

I always enjoy Claudia McGill’s poems for their quirky nature, none more so than her ‘Little Vines’, which she has been propagating for a number of years.

This one from her recent post reminded me, of one of my all time favourite cartoons by Clement. *

4338.
Simpering clams, you said?
No, simmering clams.
Oh. I did wonder how you could tell.

* I think this cartoon dates from the early 1990’s. I have kept it in my recipe book since I cut it out from the newspaper.

Tall weepers and other inspirations

For a few months now I have been joining a group of people via Zoom for Sunday Art Time. They live on the other side of the world to me and I didn’t know any of them when this started.  That hasn’t stopped us getting together for an hour each week just to chat and make art.

One of my earlier mini-zines made from various pages from Mindfood magazine.

Working with collage and simple book forms let’s me make work that can be finished in one or two sessions. I like the ability to make a work quickly, given most of my serious textile work takes ages to complete.

Featuring adventure penguins.
More adventurous penguins on luxury yachts!
And concluding with the one and only Mr John Waters

I have also found some good ideas from the broader reaches of the “junk journaling ” movement, such as cutting up large print books for useful phrases.

“A wild ass from North Africa “, a work in progress.

These mini-zines and collages give rein to the less formal (aka sillier) side of my art and has given me a lot of enjoyment in these grim times.

Sound advice for the masses. A mash-up of paint sample chips with rose names.

You can find some other examples on my collage|books|zines page.

Escape to the country!

Last week we finally left our Canberra for the first time in months to drive an hour away to the country town of Braidwood.

The village of Braidwood started to form around the 1840s and has retained many of it’s older 19th century buildings along the main street. As such, it’s a great place to sketch.

I was sketching across the road from the CWA (Country Women’s Association) building and the post office and then later further down the main street into town.

My first sketch was made on a page that I had prepared with white gesso and ink a few weeks back. I also collaged some paper onto my page, which I had made by printing from a gelli (gel) plate. That saved me from having to paint the mountain.

Along the street my eye was caught by an interesting combination of rooflines and light poles.

Steep roofs and tall chimneys. Watercolour and pencil.

I was just getting stuck into my blind contour drawing when I had to go for lunch which we had booked at the Albion Cafe.

Blind contour drawing of the same scene of rooftops and light poles.

I liked this last one best of all. It’s probably a good thing that we had to go to lunch before I ruined it.