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.

Cafe sketch, watercolour and graphite

Celebrating ‘National (read USA) Pencil Day’, the day the first pencil with attached eraser was patented in 1858

Inspired by the woman with the red hair, watercolour and graphite

Reading the papers with the rest of the retirees, pen and ink

Arborists clearing our trees from the powerlines. The left hand page of a full spread.

Shredding the prunings, the right hand page of the full spread

At the markets, pen and ink with watercolour

A final cafe sketch for the week. Watercolour and ink.

Ultimately I plan to bind these booklets together into a single book.

Unplanned connection

Without the internet I am unlikely to have ever found Claudia McGill’s Haiku 365.

Everyone I asked

said it was an ugly thing

and handed it back.

Together it sits here with my watercolour and paste up work about demolition and rebuilding in the Woden town centre near my home.

Thanks Claudia!

Surfside life-sketching

We continue to head down the coast for our weekly swim while the weather and the east-coast current are warm. We have a decent sized beach shelter so between bouts of swimming and boogie-boarding we can sit comfortably inside out of the sun and sketch.

Like a life-drawing class the length of the poses changes. Some people stand still for some time looking out to sea,

others, bend or lift a board so quickly that the stance lasts only for seconds.

I am often surprised at the variety of subjects matter that present themselves.

If there is one thing I need to remind myself, it’s that I need to bring bigger sheets of paper with me to capture all the action.

Awash with JMW

There are few pleasures in an Australian summer to compare to hanging on the ocean side of the Merewether Baths, watching the waves rolling in over the rock platform, and for an extra frisson enjoying a wave washing up and over the edge of the pool.

Having enjoyed a holiday plungeor two I was reminded of that other aficionado of the seaside Mr JMW Turner. While my efforts are in no way comparable I couldn’t resist a Turneresque title for my simple sketch.

Coal ships off the port of Newcastle – waves breaking over Merewether Ocean Baths, water temperature 20°C, falling tide , 19 January 2018