Tag / ink sketch

by Leonie Andrews

Rosalie Gascoigne

For those of you who’ve read this blog for a while the name Rosalie Gascoigne might be familiar. I have written about her work here previously.

Gascoigne was born in New Zealand 1917 and died in Australia in 1999, (she lived in Australia from 1943). Gascoigne is, arguably, the greatest Australian landscape artist of the late 20th century. The earliest part of her time in Australia was spent at Mt Stromlo Observatory, where her husband Ben, worked as an astronomer.  It was an isolated place at the time, just outside Canberra,  the capital of Australia (now on the suburban edge of the city).

Early days at Mt Stromlo c. 1944, photgraph by Ben Gascoigne

Originally Gascoigne found expression through collecting and arranging pieces of wood and feathers as she walked around the mountain. Most memorably, at a talk of hers I went to at the National Gallery of Australia,  she showed a photo of an early work made, quite literally of rabbit droppings glued to a piece of cardboard!

Later she undertook the practice of Sogetsu Ikebana, but found it ultimately limiting. She turned to using found materials, that she often collected from country rubbish tips around Canberra, as material for her constructions.

Gascoigne with her work Clouds 1, made from a found window frame and a piece of corrugated iron. Photographer unidentified.

Major works of hers are now held by the National Gallery of Australia and other state and regional institutions.

Gascoigne in 1993, photographed by Greg Weight, who clearly referenced the earlier photo of her with Clouds 1.

I recently visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales,  where I saw Gascoigne’s installation of found domestic enamel ware. This sketch is the top section of that work (in reality the cup and long handle are suspended from the top of the work’s frame).

Detail from Gascoigne’s installation,
Enamel Ware, 1976
by Leonie Andrews

My first Inktober

There’s no doubt that the shame of the shear amount of rarely used pens and ink that I own is a contributing factor to my first ever participation in Inktober. It’s one of those myriad art “challenges ” that breed in the dank corners of social media, however this one has become one of the better known month long events.

The sad result of too many trips where buying art supplies became our souvenirs.

Simply take whatever form of ink you like, Biro, pen and ink, brush pen, whatever and draw every day for the month of October.  The rules are satisfyingly loose enough for people to pretty much do what they want, and of course, you post the results of your daily efforts on whichever of the social media platforms you favour.

Fountain pens and brush pens filled with different inks

There is a list of daily prompts you can follow, or you can do your own thing. I’m opting for the latter. My plan is to draw portraits of artists from old photographs.  I hope this will give me sufficient leeway to focus as much on my technique as it does on the subject matter.

Now I have a month to rectify, or at least revive some skills in that area.

To be honest, I really need to! In the run-up to the challenge, I have struggled to get a reasonable result because I largely have stopped using my fountain pens for regular art making.

What I am using for the challenge.

I’d love to hear if any of you are doing Inktober too.