March 9, 2026March 9, 2026 by Leonie Andrews

All the vegetables

It started last year and now I’ve done two more sketches of the vegetables we grow in our garden.

The ‘Turk’s Turban pumpkin was a ‘no brainer’, so visually appealing it just begged to be drawn. Sadly, by the time we decided to eat it, it had rotted on the inside. I did manage to save some seeds so hopefully I’ll have more subjects next year.

Next up was this ‘Grosse Lisse’ tomato, which weighed in at 554 grams (or 1 pound 2 ounces). It was picked still a bit green, but has subsequently ripened fully.

Last but not least are a small bunch of zucchinis (courgettes), some of the 150+ fruits that we have harvested so far this year.

All the sketches are made using Caran d’Ache Luminance, light fast, colour pencils. My sketchbook is a Leuchtturm 1917 sketchbook, the combination of the smooth paper with the creamy pencils works particularly well.

January 13, 2026January 13, 2026 by Leonie Andrews

Another Sunday night sketch

Our Sunday ritual of catching up with art friends in the UK and Scotland continues. As we had been out and got back just 10 minutes before our meeting time I decided to simply grab my book and colour pencils and sketch my partner sitting at the other end of the table.

I really enjoyed the marks I used, but when I sat looking at it the following morning I realised that his head isn’t in proportion with his body. I’m happy with the drawing of both, but they are not quite the right size for each other. Oh well.

My sketches outside Old Parliament House

Earlier that day we’d been out with our local chapter of Urban Sketchers at Old Parliament House. As I have sketched here many times I decided to try and find some different angles to capture.

Top left is the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, which has been occupying the land across from the front of the Old Parliament since Australia Day 1972. So that means that by the end of this month it will have been there for 54 years.

Bottom left is a view from the building from the Senate Rose gardens. Originally that fence kept the prying eyes of the public out, so the Senators could enjoy some fresh air in privacy.

The right hand page shows the first women to be elected to parliament. Senator (Dame) Dorothy Tangney on the left and (Dame) Enid Lyons, house of Representatives on the right.

These were done with watercolour and in the case of the Tent Embassy, I used pencil.

January 5, 2026January 5, 2026 by Leonie Andrews

Starting to draw in January

As Yoda once said “do or do not”. So some days I do and some days I do not!

One thing I do want to do this year is work on reducing the ridiculous amount of art materials sitting unused in my back room, in cupboards and all sorts of other places around the house. Now I have materials I prefer to use, the rest just sit there.

Drawing with colour pencils, trying to change the direction of my marks each time I put the pencil on the page. Also, trying not to be too ‘precious’ with my drawings.

I’m trying some tactics to use things like markers, in particular. I have seen several artists use them to make this ‘window pane’ background to sketch over.

Marker pen window pane background, ready to use

I did a similar preparation using other hot pink markers (forgot to take a reference photo) and this is what it looks like as a base with a finished drawing over the top.

Marker background colour pencil over the top. Still life from our table top.

The fact that I’m using this lovely sketchbook from Leuchtturm 1917 helps. It was part of the ‘goody bag’ I received when I taught at the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Poznan last year. This isn’t the type of paper I would usually work with, but it’s very good for all these dry media.

One of my favourite ‘goody bag’ items from Symposium 2025.

July 21, 2025July 21, 2025 by Leonie Andrews

Back at the Portrait Gallery

I know it’s only been a week, but I was back at the National Portrait Gallery again on Sunday for their monthly life drawing session, called Drawn In. The Gallery provides easels, boards, materials, paper, and pencils, but you can also take your own.

My book is watercolour paper, so I did my first sketch, a tonal study, with pencil, on the smoother side of my paper.

Trying to focus more on tone, than lines, although I used both

I decided to move into the Family Art room as it’s possible to use watercolour in there. It was certainly a different angle to sketch from. It was almost the reverse of the view that I did first.

Lots of friends from the Urban Sketchers were also there, so we rounded off the afternoon with cups of tea and coffee in the cafe.

April 7, 2018April 7, 2018 by Leonie Andrews

A fistful of cafes

I have been refining my coffee sketching process this year, applying the KISS principle (‘keep it simple stupid’) to what I carry in my bag for impromptu sketching sessions. A test card of watercolours, a pencil, a pen and a waterbrush and a ‘book’ made from one sheet of A3 watercolour paper. Both the book and the colour card fit into a plastic sleeve from an old bank passbook (gosh, do you remember those?). Here’s a shot of the set up.

Each A3 sheet is folded in half horizontally to make two panorama style pages. These are folded in half then sewn together through the fold. Each side of the panorama is the folded in half again (as you can see in the photo above), which means the final size all folded up fits in the plastic sleeve.

The completed booklet

Here are sketches from my latest book. What I really like is that, depending on your layout you can sketch over part, or the full stretch of the page.