by Leonie Andrews

Gold and the Incas

I love going to the National Gallery of Australia on New Year’s Day. It’s not too crowded and I think that looking at art is a fine way to get the year off to a good start. This was my first visit to see the latest NGA ‘blockbuster’ show Gold and the Incas. The subtitle, the Lost Worlds of Peru, gives a far more accurate summary of what’s on display. Yes there is a lot of gold, not to mention silver and precious stones on display, but to my eye it is the masterpieces of ceramics and textiles that are the outstanding elements of the exhibition. And BTW there’s not much from the Incas because the conquistadores nicked or melted down most of the good stuff. What is on show are artefacts from a number of cultures that existed in what is present day Peru, most of whom none of us has ever heard of.

A Huari vessel in the shape of a llama, 67 cm high, 600-1,000AD.

A Huari vessel in the shape of a llama, 67 cm high, 600-1,000AD.

The lighting is kept very low in most of the rooms so doing drawings was a challenge. There  were also not many benches where you could sit to draw. Gallery rules allow for only the use of pencil and paper so most of my efforts were limited to quick sketches and taking notes for future reference. I subsequently decided to make a composite image of my drawings and then add colour to give some idea of what we saw.

Composite image of my sketches of 1 January 2014, with added watercolour and acrylic.

Composite image of my sketches of 1 January 2014, with added watercolour and acrylic.

Apart from the llama and the face mask most of the other sketches are just parts of larger objects. In case you were wondering about the strange grey and black blob on the left hand side it is actually a person silhouetted against a large cloak that is covered in squares of beaten silver. People, including myself, seemed to be quite transfixed by this piece and often stood still long enough for me to draw them. The burial mask illustrated above also has an interesting provenance as it is one of the items of ‘tribal art’ that was collected by the Surrealist artist Max Ernst. The NGA purchased Ernst’s collection in 1985.

Having made my initial sortie I plan to go back and try to selectively draw some of the other works on display. This exhibition runs until 21 April 2014.

by Leonie Andrews

Into the light

I’ve recently joined the Urban Sketchers, an online group of people from around the world that like to draw (in whatever medium). Their ‘mission’ is to “Show the world, one drawing at a time”. This week there is a theme to draw artificial light. Given it is Christmas there was only one choice for me – the ‘icicle’ lights on my house.

Blue 'icicle' lights, 29 December 2013.

Blue ‘icicle’ lights, 29 December 2013.

There were several challenges to doing this drawing, not the least of which was re-setting the lights to ‘steady’, rather than a fit-inducing flashing sequence. The biggest problem was the colour of the light itself. Being such an intense blue (it gives a real disco fluorescent whiteness to any white clothing), it was a challenge to firstly see my page let alone get some realistic colour onto it.

So, a la Vincent, I put on my camping headlight so I actually had a white light to work on my page. Capturing the intensity of the individual lights and the backwash of colour has proved quite difficult. However I’m happy with this first attempt. I will try to develop a more intense version of this scene, using photographs I’ve taken as I’m not sure that I could take another half hour session sitting in this light. After finishing I got one of those ‘afterglow’ optical effects where everything I saw went ‘orange’. The only other time I have had such a strong effect was in experiencing James Turrell’s work Open Field, at the Chichu Museum on Naoshima Island in Japan.

by Leonie Andrews

In the swim

While I was in Newcastle last week I took the opportunity to take my sketchbook to Merewether ocean baths. Built between 1934-35 these ocean baths have two pools, one for children and a deeper pool as well, both of which are the size of several Olympic swimming pools placed side by side. Filled with fresh seawater they are a very popular place for Novocastrians to swim.

To my dismay I realised I hadn’t packed my watercolours. I opted instead for pencil drawings. I did two drawings, one looking at one end of both pools and the second of the railings and path outside the nearby kiosk.

Blind drawing, Merewether ocean baths 18 December 2013.

Blind drawing, Merewether ocean baths 18 December 2013.

Apologies for the quality, but I decided to add the ‘missing’ colour later and only took a photo of the drawing before I added the paint. Here is the painted version.

Merewether baths 18 December 2013 with watercolour added.

Merewether baths 18 December 2013 with watercolour added.

I was not really happy with this outcome and to add insult to injury I realised too late that the very wet paint I used had seeped through to the drawing on the next page.

Railings and pathway, Merewether Beach, 18 December 2013.

Railings and pathway, Merewether Beach, 18 December 2013.

No doubt I have a few lessons to take away from this experience!