March 3, 2015 by Leonie Andrews

Night Noodle Markets

We braved the Night Noodle Markets last night, the main food event held as part of Canberra’s Enlighten Festival. Having arrived early and fortified ourselves with ‘meat on sticks’ we found a good spot next to the lantern display for drawing. The only drawback was the wind blowing off Lake Burley-Griffin, which was so strong that it blew my watercolour box off the table several times! It took me over an hour but I persisted with trying to capture those lanterns dancing on their wires. It was light when I started and dark by the time I’d finished. A great time was had by all.

The lantern display at the Night Noodle Markets, 2 March 2015, watercolour

March 2, 2015March 2, 2015 by Leonie Andrews

Canberra Sketchers Group

The Canberra Sketchers Group met for the second time, last Sunday, for several hours of drawing at the National Gallery of Australia. Our visit coincided with Sculpture Garden Sunday so there was plenty of activity and people to capture as well as the art work itself. We were pleased to welcome some new people to the group. As always we managed to find a variety of things to draw around the gallery. Some braved the crowds in the Sculpture Garden, some used the pop-up restaurant as their base and others drew in the Asian galleries.

Collective efforts, some of the sketches from the Sunday sketch crawl at the NGA

I started in the Sculpture Garden where I painted three of the slit drums from Vanuatu.

Slit drums for Vanuatu, in the Sculpture Garden, National Gallery of Australia, watercolour and graphite, 1 March 2015

I only had to turn my head to see the furious activity of the straw modelling activity nearby.

The straw figure making activity, National Gallery of Australia, watercolour, 1 March 2015

For my last sketch I tried to capture the people in the central lawn area of the Sculpture Garden. This proved to be quite a challenge as there must have been several hundred people in front of me. I decided to keep it fast and loose with pen and ink.

Families in the central lawn area on Sculpture Garden Sunday, National Gallery of Australia, 1 March 2015 pen and ink.

The Canberra Sketchers Group will meet again on 12 April at 10.30 am at the Lanyon Historic Homestead, Tharwa Drive, Tharwa (on the Canberra side of the Tharwa Bridge). Everyone is welcome.

Here is the link to our previous outing and you can also find another perspective on the days activities by heading over to Tones and Tints.

February 28, 2015 by Leonie Andrews

Back to the zoo

Last weekend I went back to the zoo to buy the pass that would allow me inexpensive access the place for a whole year. Of course I took advantage of being there to do some quick drawings. Being late in the afternoon, on an overcast day, seemed to suit the animals as I got to see quite a few that were tucked out of sight on our previous visit.

The first of these was one of the two Snow Leopards (Panthera uncia) that the zoo has. While I was looking at the leopard it was often looking right back at me, always an interesting experience.

Snoozing Snow Leopard, pen and ink, 21 February 2015

The Oriental Small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinerea) were alternately curled up in a tangle together or racing around their enclosure waiting for their dinner to be served. Their tails are broad at the base and taper to a point.

A tangle of Oriental Small Clawed Otters, pen and ink, 21 February 2015

Sitting on the wall of the otter enclosure was a White-faced Heron (Ardea novaehollandiae), who had worked out that otters are messy eaters and easy pickings were to be had if it hung around long enough.

The White-faced heron waiting for otter leftovers, pen and ink 21 February 2015

Not far away was the Malayan Sun Bear (Helarctos malayanus) enclosure. A passing keeper told me that I was looking at the female bear and added that the bear had rough fur and patting the bear felt like touching a sack of wet concrete. The bear’s fur looked very dense and its body was clearly very ‘solid’ underneath it. It’s not surprising that the habitat of the bear is tropical rainforest and montane forests where the dense fur is able to repel rain. I watched while the bear moved around on the telephone pole log frame in her pen, the logs she was on are about 3-4 metres above the ground.

A female Malayan Sun bear, pen and ink, 21 February 2015

February 26, 2015 by Leonie Andrews

Seen on the street

There’s been a lot of activity in our area with workman replacing old terracotta sewage pipes with new high density plastic ones. As a result all sorts of trucks and trailers have been around.

This truck and trailer conveniently pulled up on my neighbours nature strip, (the bit out the front of the house where the footpath might go, but hers is just grass).

Truck and trailer, pen and ink Copic multiliner, acrylic marker pen and gouache, 17 February 2015

I used a whole stack of different media on this drawing. The pen and ink was a bit dark so I used white gouache to pick out some of the elements of the truck. I also added some acrylic marker for the colour elements. I’m continuing to use my bits of newsprint stuck to thin Japanese paper as a substrate. I’m not sure what problems this might cause for long term survival of the drawing, but since I’m ‘mucking around’ I’m not too concerned. I really like it as a background. I’ll give you the hot tip, the best pages to use turn out to be stock market reports, TV pages and the racing form-guide as these are about the only pages in the newspaper these days that don’t have photographs on them.

A day later I was driving home in the evening and spotted one of the mini-diggers parked next to our neighbour’s dinosaur (yes there are quite a few of them in our area). By the time I got organised the following morning and got back down the street to make a drawing, the digger driver was getting in the cab ready to drive off. I got two or three quick photos and one very quick sketch. The latter I do intend working up into a drawing, sometime. So in the end all I was left with was Rex so here he /she is (how do you know?)

The T-Rex down the road, pen and ink and ball point pen, 19 February 2015

February 22, 2015 by Leonie Andrews

From arts to ants

It was an unusual combination of activities that we went to this Sunday afternoon. Firstly there was ‘Drawn In’, the monthly drawing activity held at the National Portrait Gallery. Today Leila and Michael from The Night Cafe performed a range of latin, gypsy and jazz music on guitar, flute and voice.

Michael and Leila at Drawn In, pen and ink, ball point pen, 22 February 2015

It’s great to be able to draw people in action. Michael’s guitar playing provided an interesting pose.

Michael on guitar, pen and ink and ball point pen, 22 February 2015

Leila proved to be more of a challenge to draw as she moved between her flute and vocals. I found her hand positions on the flute fun to try and capture.

Leila on flute, pen and ink and ball point pen, 22 February 2015

Thanks to both musicians for allowing themselves to be scrutinised by so many interested pairs of eyes.

If an afternoon of drawing wasn’t enough we had a second outing to attend. Over on the slopes of Black Mountain we joined the Friends of Black Mountain and Ajay Narendra to look at the local ant fauna. There are over 120 species of ants on the mountain so before long we were examining ants, subterranean and arboreal, biting and non-biting. Ajay shared all sorts of interesting information about ant behaviour and identification. I was most impressed by his ability to gently hold an ant by its legs, between his fingers, before releasing her gently back to where she was picked up (most ants you see are sterile females).

Ajay and interested onlookers at the Black Mountain ant walk, ball point pen, 22 February 2015

Of course it was slow progress as there were so many different types of ants just in the short part of the path we walked along, so I had time for a sketch in between ant species.