It was blowing a howling southerly on Wednesday, not quite as bad as that experienced by my family in the Hunter Valley of NSW, but bad enough. I drew these two gents who, like us had retreated into the cafe to get warm and enjoy a chat. I was trying to draw from the inside out, that is not starting with outlines but only adding them later as necessary.
Two old men chatting, pen and ink, 22 April 2015
This morning’s coffee break resulted in this set of portraits.
Patrons of the Italian bakery, pen and ink, 7 April 2015
We were out on Easter Saturday and because our regular coffee spot was closed for the holiday we opted for an alternative venue. Ah new scenes to draw. Out came the trusty pen (Lamy Safari) and ink and the somewhat dodgy pen (Duke 209). My attention was caught by the plane tree framed by the cafe door. I also liked the people sitting on the right. So far so good. Then I thought I’d better capture the person on the left before they finished their snack and left. I realised too late that I’d drawn the person on the left at the wrong scale.
The original drawing, cafe pen and ink, 4 April 2015
I couldn’t resist a little tweak using Photoshop to enlarge the figure on the left to get an idea of how the drawing might have turned out.
Re-jigged on Photoshop, the figure on the left enlarges to a more realistic scale.
I’ll console myself with the old saying that “the only person who’s never made a mistake is the person who’s never done a thing”.
Drawing people continues to be the steepest learning curve for me. I like Hallie Batemen‘s comment that people on mobile phones are good subjects to draw as they are generally oblivious to you when they are talking on the phone. Last week I discovered another good category of people to sketch – smokers! I know this sounds odd but since the introduction of smoke free environment laws in the ACT smokers are exiled to congregate in small clusters, outside, away from offices and shops. I discovered such a sad cluster across the road from where I was having a cup of coffee early this week. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.
Two Smokers, Tuggeranong, pen and ink, ball point pen, 16 February 2015
And it doesn’t stop at smokers either. I know its not exactly life drawing, but I’m also happy to take advantage when passing by suitable figurative sculptures. I spotted this small sculpture by Degas in the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) a few days ago and made a drawing of her as well.
Grand Arabesque 3rd Position, Edgar Degas, bronze with patina, 1880’s, pencil, 20 February 2015
I must say that Degas gave her arms a more albatross-like extension than they would have had in real life, (I want you to know it isn’t my wonky drawing). I also managed to capture a page of cafe-goers in the NGA cafe on the same day.
At the National Gallery of Australia cafe, 20 February 2015, ball point pen
Practice, practice, practice!
If there is one piece of advice that I think we can all benefit from it is to take up our sketchbooks and draw! While I carry a very small Moleskine drawing book in my bag I’m also trying to take my larger format book with me whenever I go out.
This week I went to a floortalk at the Australia Wide 4 exhibition from the OzQuilt Network. I decided to draw the speaker, using blind drawing technique. I had two goes at it and thought the second was more successful than the first.
Blind drawing at the exhibition floortalk, 12 February 2015, pen and ink
Today I was able to spend some more time working on this street scape and figures on the restaurant strip in Tuggeranong. And yes, in case you were wondering I used all my three fountain pens in this sketch, just because I can.
Anketell St Tuggeranong, 13 February 2015, pen and ink
