At the start of April we caught up with fellow Urban Sketchers from Geelong and the Fleurieu Peninsula, at a roughly halfway between them point, in the rural city of Mt Gambier, South Australia.
There were catching up with friends and making new ones. The sketching was fun because I didn’t sketch much the last time I came here.
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.
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.
This is my last sketch of 2025 made on New Year’s eve while going for our ‘long’ walk around a nearby mountain.
I was using my regular tiny book I carry when walking and trying out an exercise from an artist I recently discovered called Orla Stevens *. The idea is to sketch for no more than 10 minutes changing the direction of your marks for each item you draw.
Now I know I haven’t nailed this yet, but I was really excited by her very loose approach to sketching. As this is one of our ‘regular’ walks I have drawn from this spot quite a few times already this year.
I felt quite free to just go for it with this sketch. I certainly plan to do more in the future.
* You can find Orla on YouTube at https://youtube.com/@orlastevens?si=L2oCkPtSiFWU_1Ly
Today we met up with friends to explore the site of the former Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station where the first pictures of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the Moon were transmitted to the rest of the world. (Yeah-nah, not ‘the Dish’ at Parkes).
The infrastructure is largely gone, but there is now a set of information panels and a series of sculptural elements by Canberra sculptor Michael Harding.
Our intention had been to sketch on site, but it didn’t happen. We went prepared to BBQ our lunch only to discover that the gas in the BBQs had run out.
In the end we drove back to the Ranger Station and cooked our meal there. While not quite the view I was planning I did complete a sketch of the nearby rural landscape.
This is the first sketch in my new sketchbook. So you could say “one small sketch” (sorry that’s so lame).
[This post was originally written on 15 September, but for some reason I forgot to post it. Oops.]
I recently went to the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Poznan, where I did a workshop with French artist Olivia Markus. She was teaching, amongst other things, an interesting approach to colouring sketches. The point of which, in part, was to reinforce a sense of depth of field in your sketch.
I think the simplified colour choices deliver exciting results. Of course, they also challenge your use of tonal contrast. So far, I’ve mainly used them for scenes with people in them. The limited colour selection imposes a unity, which is often missing from my regular sketches.
Now, I’m taking the next steps of testing out what I learned and then trying to integrate the process into my practice.
I use watercolour as my main medium, so that does yield different results to the inks that Marcus uses. To be fair, I really haven’t tried the process with ink yet.
I’m also experimenting with which colour combinations work most effectively together.
I find the stark black pen a bit strong, and it tends to overwhelm the watercolour’s subtle tones. Lately, I have been using less black, instead choosing to use a more intense pigment.
I’m still ‘not there’ yet in terms of the outcomes, but as today’s sketch show, there is some progress.
leonieandrews 