February 16, 2016February 16, 2016 by Leonie Andrews

More faces

A quick trip to the National Gallery yesterday to see the small exhibition Black – more of that another time perhaps. En route passed this unidentified Indian goddess in the Asian gallery.

Unknown goddess (possibly Lakshmi or Gangaur), Patan, 17th cent. wood and pigment

Today I was back to play at the cafe again with my magic pencils and the odd bit of white chalk.

Two faces at the cafe, magic pencils Fire and America (left); Fire, America, Tropical and white chalk (right)

And some more.

Face, white chalk and magic pencils, America and Tropical

Obscured face, magic pencils Fire and America and white chalk

February 13, 2016February 13, 2016 by Leonie Andrews

Getting the ‘lead’ out

I’ve been using my Koh-i-noor Magic Pencils as my main sketching material for a few weeks now. Apart from being caught up in the sheer fun of multicoloured pencils that would be the envy of any pencil case, I find that they are ‘magic’ in other ways as well.

Koh-i-noor Magic coloured pencils

Koh-i-noor Magic Pencils

They are ‘magic’ because you can’t quite control where the colour will turn up.

Cafe drawings, Magic Pencils (America), with white chalk on the right hand side, on grey-toned Strathmore paper, 30 January 2016

They are ‘magic’ because they encourage me to play.

Two men, with multiple arms, Magic Pencils (Original, Fire and America), on grey-toned Strathmore paper, 13 February 2016

Two men, with multiple arms, Magic Pencils (Original and Fire, left; Original and America, right), on grey-toned Strathmore paper, 13 February 2016

They are ‘magic’ because they remind me to focus on the structure of my drawing – where is the light coming from? – not what colour is her t-shirt?

Woman and unfinished man, Magic Pencils (Fire and America, left; and Original, right), 13 February 2016

They are ‘magic’ because paying attention to the key elements of a subject is more important than ‘completing’ the picture.

Tatooed man, Magic Pencils (America, Fire and Tropical, 13 February 2016

They are ‘magic’ because they show me that drawing can be much so much more interesting than straightforward representation.

February 8, 2016January 8, 2017 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.

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.

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

February 4, 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).

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.

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

February 4, 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.

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.

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.

leonieandrews

Tag / pencil