Cockatoo Island

Cockatoo Island is in Sydney Harbour and a wonderful place to spend a day.
 
It was a convict settlement from 1839. It was also the site of one of Australia’s biggest shipyards, operating between 1857 and 1991. The first of its two dry docks was built by convicts. Many of the original sandstone convict buildings and the dockyard and shipbuilding complex are still in place and you can explore them. There are also many, many cranes from its shipbuilding years. Sketching heaven !!

Now you can also camp overnight in tents as well as catch a ferry there for the day. It is a favourite place of my sketching friends to visit and we have been there often.

I caught a quick 10 minute ferry ride , but had time to fill in first at the terminal – by drawing !

 

some tanks
 
pipes on the side of a large beautiful old sandstone building




a very large crane and some tents for camping
the same crane that I drew on my coffee cup

There are so many buildings equipment and views to sketch on Cockatoo island. I had my watercolour pencils and Lamy ink Safari Pen with me and my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook. Last time I was here I especially brought large sheets of paper with me and some inks to experiment with . I had felt the need to sketch these cranes LARGE one day. I did a few, but it was raining, which does not work well with watercolours and ink . I can try again next weekend as it is the place for the Urban Sketchers Sydney next event !

I also found a sketch from my first visit to Cockatoo Island in Jul 2008. It was for an International Sketchcrawl and the first time I met an sketched with Liz Steel !
It was my first Sketchcrawl and I had only just begun drawing watercolour pencil. I am not sure if my drawing style has changed – but my confidence in use of colour certainly has !

4 thoughts on “Cockatoo Island”

  3. Alissa Duke

    Thanks Jodi! The coffee cup was great fun Cockatoo Island is a special place. I recommend it to all my Sydney visitors. It has so much to see, as well as sketch. The weather at the moment is particularly glorious and makes the visit even better. On a cold , windy or wet day it is not so much fun.

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