It’s a cliche but when I arrived at the farm yesterday I did feel my shoulders relax.
I spotted several points to sketch on my walk this morning so I set about working pretty quickly.
Three sketches outside Stanhope New South Wales
Tag / watercolour
Summit Walk (unposted from 2017!)
Yesterday (20 November 2017) we went for a pleasant walk around our local landmark Black Mountain. A walking track circles it below the summit. The walk is posted as taking 45 minutes to complete, but allowing for stopping to botanise and sketch we managed the circumnambulation at a cracking two hours and ten minutes!
Black Mountain telecommunications tower.
Escape to the country!
Last week we finally left our Canberra for the first time in months to drive an hour away to the country town of Braidwood.
The village of Braidwood started to form around the 1840s and has retained many of it’s older 19th century buildings along the main street. As such, it’s a great place to sketch.
I was sketching across the road from the CWA (Country Women’s Association) building and the post office and then later further down the main street into town.
My first sketch was made on a page that I had prepared with white gesso and ink a few weeks back. I also collaged some paper onto my page, which I had made by printing from a gelli (gel) plate. That saved me from having to paint the mountain.
Along the street my eye was caught by an interesting combination of rooflines and light poles.
I was just getting stuck into my blind contour drawing when I had to go for lunch which we had booked at the Albion Cafe.
I liked this last one best of all. It’s probably a good thing that we had to go to lunch before I ruined it.
Life Drawing .
Last week I went to my first life drawing class of the year. We had a stand-in model, one of the class, as the booked model cancelled just before the class started.
I took the big tip from last year’s classes and bought myself a roll of paper from the kids section of IKEA for the short poses. As you can see you just keep rolling it up and over the easel.
For my quick poses I used coloured pencils, part of my drive to start using all those stray art materials I have hanging around.
For the longer poses I swapped over to watercolour. Our group is quite eclectic in terms of media. We ranged from pencil to digital, acrylic and watercolour.
Trees
In the middle of all the hubbub that was Christmas eve I managed to get myself to the Wittunga Botanic Garden in the Adelaide Hills for some lone sketching. I was so shocked at the sight of a koala sitting on the ground just next to the footpath that I almost didn’t sketch him.
Koala and garbage bin. The latter designed with a cover to keep possums and other inquisitive animals from getting into the bins.
Wonderful to see this chap. Probably a male, as it was very big, easily up to my knee in height. That’s a waterbowl next to him so I assume he came down for a drink. The garden is fully fenced and dogs are prohibited, which is why you see this individual being so relaxed.
After obliging me for sitting for his portrait I moved on to the shelter of a small covered picnic table to sketch my main subject of the day the trees.
Here they are in the order that I sketched them. I deliberately went as fast as I could from one study to the next.
leonieandrews 