On Saturday, a group of my previous student & I met at the local Kere Kere Café in Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne. 

It was a casual, social catch up ‘just for fun’. For some it was the first time they had put pencil to paper since the class and they came along for motivation.  Others had been sketching and wanted to know more. They had questions that they had in their use of watercolour pencils.

As we were in the gardens, we had a number of twigs, bunya pine branches and leaves collected and put in the middle of our table.
There was also the option of sketching the food and drinks at the café or the surrounds.

The items I chose to sketch represent the morning. The bunya pine is from the gardens, the coffee is from Kere Kere Cafe and the playing card what you get when you order. As well as letting the staff know where to deliver food and drinks, you also use the card to vote on their Community projects, by dropping it in a box as you leave.

My friends/students  asked questions and I explained how I use watercolour pencils.

We had a discussion about how to add shadows  to an object.

Sometimes a shadow can ‘ground’ the object and show that it is sitting on the table.

If you are going to add a shadow, look at it carefully and don’t just put a generic shape underneath the object. The shadow assists to create depth and even the shadow can have different shades. It will be darker when an object touches the table.

Other times, adding shadow can overwhelm the drawing of an object. This poor little feather (above) should have been left alone.

And some objects don’t need a shadow and work as a stand alone sketch.

Happy sketching !