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by Leonie Andrews

Art and the Beach

It’s rather embarrassing but I have just found this post from early February 2016 which I forgot to post, so somewhat belatedly, here it is.

I love visiting the city of Adelaide and a trip to the Art Gallery of South Australia is always on the ‘to do’ list. On this visit I wanted to see The Power of Pattern: the Ayako Mitsui Collection, which highlights kimonos and the stencils and techniques used to decorate fabric. While there I also took the time to do some drawings of some of the sculpture in the main gallery.

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Statue of Eros, 1892-93, by Alfred Gilbert, new casting in aluminium, 1986-88; and Torso by Jean Broome-Norton, 1935, painted plaster. Pencil on grey-toned paper 5 February, 2016

After a bit of culture it’s also good to catch a bit of nature, in the form of one of Adelaides beaches. Saturday was near perfect beach-going weather with a clear sky and very little breeze. The water was crystal clear over a white sand bottom so visibility was excellent. After quite a bit of decadently floating around, my nephew and I started looking at the various things we could spot underwater. Apart from ‘the usual suspects’, seaweed and razor clam shells, we found a big chunk of smoothed bottle glass and somewhat unexpectedly a large piece of an old LP record. The latter had also clearly been in the water for quite some time so I couldn’t say exactly what music had been entertaining old Neptune.

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Sea ‘treasures’, pecil on grey-toned paper, 6 February 2016

by Leonie Andrews

Backyard Still lifes

Sitting in the  garden deciding what to draw. I looked up and spotted this great colour combination.  (PS the strange light bands across the drawing is an artefact of taking photos in the strong sunlight).

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Still life with punching bag and barbeque, pencil on grey tone paper, 4 February 2016

After this I turned my head and found my next subject, a folded umbrella.

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Umbrella, handle and brick wall, pencil on grey toned paper, 4 February 2016

by Leonie Andrews

The Titan Aram

Horticultural types have been aghast with excitement at the second flowering of a Titan Arum lily (Amorphophaĺlus titanum) in the precincts of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens within weeks (the first flowered at the end of December 2015).

This second bloom, named “Ganteng”, or ‘handsome’, in Indonesian, started flowering on Sunday. I caught the story on the Sunday news so, as we were already visiting the family in Adelaide, getting to the gardens became a priority.

Thousands of people have visited the Bicentennial Conservatory since the flower first opened so we were relieved to find that by the time we arrived on Wednesday there not many people there at all. I made two drawings of the plant, both from the overhead walkway in the conservatory.

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The Titan Arum, pencil on grey-toned paper, 3 February 2016


In the second drawing i tried to capture some of the excitement and interest viewing the flower has generated.
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I’m not sure how long the flower will be on display, as it is curling up almost as fast as it unfurled. I’d love to get back and have another go at drawing it.

by Leonie Andrews

Material concerns

Sketching materials often cause me a dilemma. Like many sketchers I run the risk of paralysis from too much choice. When I made my trip to Brisbane last week I decided on one sketchbook – a grey-tone Strathmore and a limited selection of pens/pencils. My main pencils were Koh-i-noor Magic pencils, so I couldn’t ‘control’ to any extent  the colours that came out. I didn’t know whether I could do it! Indeed I did resort to one digital drawing.

Brisbane River Bridges, digital drawing on PS Touch app (for Android)

Brisbane River Bridges, digital drawing on PS Touch app (for Android)

Despite this small detour I did get back on track.This sketch uses only coloured pencil and white chalk. I used several types of the Magic pencils: Original, Fire and America.

Late afternoon sun on the Storey Bridge Brisbane, coloured pencil, white chalk, 20 January 2016

Late afternoon sun on the Storey Bridge Brisbane, coloured pencil, white chalk, 20 January 2016

The next day we took our sketch books up to the Roma St Parklands where the twisting shapes of the Moreton Bay figs captured my attention.

Fig tree, Roma Street Parklands, white chalk, graphite and coloured pencil, 21 January 2016

Fig tree, Roma Street Parklands, white chalk, graphite and coloured pencil, 21 January 2016

Back home I realised that I hadn’t picked up a pencil in days so I grabbed what was to hand, a green Artline fibre pen and my black ink pen and got down to it.

Backyard, green fineline pen and ink, 29 January 2016

Backyard, green fine line pen and ink, 29 January 2016

It can be a challenge just getting past that ‘perfection’ monkey, but it’s always worth getting out and just drawing.