Monthly Archives: May 2019

Melbourne Rare Book Week – launch

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The program for the annual Melbourne Rare Book Week (MRBW) was launched on Monday night. MRBW is held from 5–14 JULY 2019 . Have look at the wide variety of talks on offer,

2019 sees the eighth Melbourne Rare Book Week (MRBW) and the 47th Australian Antiquarian Book Fair, presented by the Australian Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB) and Rare Books Melbourne (RBM). 

The program will be presented by both regular and new MRBW partners. It will include a wide variety of interesting topics on book-related themes, and entry to all events is free of charge. There will be something for all interests and taste. We welcome bibliophiles, established collectors and those new to book collecting.

I am honoured to once again be the official sketcher on location at MRBW events.

I have also been working with Melbourne Library Services to draw the posters for their events in the week. This year the focus is crime. There are four events and a display. Below are my drawings that feature in the program and on posters.

Event 1 An exploration of the 1880s Melbourne of Fergus Hume.

Hosted by Dr Lucy Sussex, an expert on Australian detective fiction, explore the sites of Melbourne featured in the books of Fergus Hume, the author of Mystery of a Hansom Cab. Hear extracts from the works of Hume along the way.

Event 2 Views from outsiders: cooking, culture and European crime fiction

In some crime fiction, the setting and the cultural details are as important as the crime itself. Join Chris Browne, an avid fan and collector of this genre of popular crime fiction, for a comparison of four European cultures as he explores the worlds of Bruno, Brunetti, Gunter and Zen.

Event 3: The Knife is Feminine: discovering Charlotte Jay

Join our panel discussion with Sisters in Crime Australia’s Carmel Shute and Katherine Kovacic, with Chris Browne. Readings by Abbe Holmes. Presented by City of Melbourne Libraries and Sisters in Crime.
The first winner of the Edgar Allan Poe award was an Australian woman, forBeat Not The Bones a mystery book set in Papua New Guinea .
But who in 2019 has heard of Charlotte Jay in this her centenary year? Discover an Australian woman who wrote crime and mystery books set in locations around the world. Celebrate the life and works of Charlotte Jay. Find out why The Knife is Feminine.

Event 4: A Portrait of Molly Dean: fiction from true crime

Presented by City of Melbourne Libraries and Sisters in Crime, Katerine Kovacic in conversation with Chris Browne.
Crime fiction is often based on true crime. The murder of Molly Dean in November 1930 in Melbourne has prompted four books and a play.
​Join Katherine Kovacic, author of The Portrait of Molly Dean, for a discussion of the crime and the subsequent fiction of the life and death of an outsider on the fringes of Melbourne’s Bohemian elite.

Display; Who dunnit? Who wrote it?’: an exhibition of crime fiction books

Featuring books from our presentations on European crime literature and the Australian author Charlotte Jay and a range of crime books available from the Footscray Mechanics Institute Library.
Curated by: Chris Browne and Linda Longley . view at Library at the Dock
Saturday 8 June to Sunday 14 July

to see further details for times dates and bookings see the program for Melbourne Rare Book Week (MRBW) .

preparing for my sketching class

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Next Saturday I have a Nature Sketching with Watercolour Pencil class at the beautiful Dromkeen homestead, just outside of Melbourne. (there is still one ticket left !! book here )

Today, on a glorious autumnal day I walked to the local Fitzroy Gardens for a trial sketch for the class. I draw the gardens and nature objects often. However, to explain my process to other people requires a bit of thought, as I don’t actually think about how I draw, i just do it.

I also wanted to use the Faber Castell pencils that the students use. They are “student grade” colours (as opposed to the Faber Castell Albrecht Durer grade pencils that I use everyday) and include fewer colours that I have in my sketchkit. I also used the same sketch book that is included in the sketchkit that is provided if they purchase kit through me. Many bring their own gear. You can get an amazing range of colour with just a few colours. I did not even go to the stage of blending colours to get a larger range of colours from five pencils

I sketched with a friend, who is also doing the class next Saturday. While I learnt a lot about what I need to spend more time explaining and focusing on, Anita received a lesson.

My class will still focus on sketching and capturing the moment on the page, I will spend more time on:

  • deciding what to sketch
  • what to include and leave out
  • simplifying shapes
  • choosing line, colour, texture to give the impression of detail and depth
  • measuring relative distances and sizes
  • when and where to add the waterbrush to the page

Weather permitting (a cold, wet change is coming through at the end of the week) I plan to take the class to sketch outside at Dromkeen, as well as collecting object from the grounds and sketching it inside. Either way, it is going to be a great day and I am looking forward to it.

Clunes Booktown Festival – Creative project

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The last two weeks blogs have been about being Social Media Reporter at Clunes Booktown Festival last weekend.

There is one final project that is part of my role, which I am completing over the next few weeks.

The brief : The final creative piece is some form of artwork made in response to your overall festival experience. This piece is to act as a deeper reflection on your part about your experience of the festival, and to give you another opportunity to really get creative and experiment. You can think of this piece as either a summary of your whole experience, or an opportunity to really dive deep into one aspect of your experience you want to explore/portray.

For my Creative Piece I am going to be drawing in a book.

I planned to purchase a book at a second hand book stall on the day. I had in mind to purchase a book about books or language, I only had a little time to browse as I was sketching all day, and actually bought the two books in the last hour. The final book for possible drawing in was bought at Clunes Railway Station (walls lined with books) to read on the two hour journey home. I was attracted  to drawing on the dictionary, however the pages are rough and not fun to draw in. So, my decision was made.

My book is : Language and Ideas: a course in English Expression for Junior Forms. Book 1 by Lane, Brereton, Dobell and Nelson published by Hall’s Book Store Pty Ltd Melbourne 1964. Previously owned by David J Netherway (in child’s writing in pencil in the front page). Cost $4

I dithered for a few days about what drawings to do and where to place them through the book.
I decided on
• drawings of historic buildings of Clunes
• drawings of books
• drawings of people looking at books at the Booktown Festival.
I am undecided about events at the Festival
I photocopied a few pages of the book and did some experimental drawings on those to see what it would look like. Then I began to draw on the actual pages.

I decided not to start at the beginning of the book – just open a page and start . Lots more drawing and lots of ideas to add to the pages over the next few weeks.

Clunes Booktown Festival

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Last week I wrote about the amazing opportunity I have to be Social Media Reporter at the iconic Clunes Booktown Festival this Saturday, sketching all day at the event.

After an early start I arrived at Clunes (near Ballarat) at 9.30 Saturday morning. It is autumn here, so the weather was crisp, with people wearing jackets and beanies. Thankfully the rain stayed away and everyone could enjoy the outside and inside events.

I spent all day exploring, attending events, sketching for short and longer times. Almost all sketches were done with Lamy Safari ink pen, then watercolour pencil added on the spot to various areas on the page. There were many Panel Discussions, Book Launches, In Conversation and Author talks to attend. And then there was the main street , closed to traffic and taken over by book stalls big and small . There were arrows on walls to “MORE BOOKS” in unexpected places.. The number of people grew over the day, but it was never crowded. The people were a great mix of ages – everyone loves books !!!

Below are my sketches from the day. The brief was to actively engage with Clunes Booktown Festival , spreading the love of this wonderful regional literary festival through my sketches. I feel as though I achieved this. see all of these is full size on my Flickr site
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alissaduke/albums/72157704944609002

It was a very big and exciting day. Thanks to Jodi for alerting me to the advertisement for the position of Social Media Reporter at Clunes Booktown Festival for the day. I could not have been happier – books and sketching !! and a big thanks to Melbourne City of Literature for the opportunity . Clunes Booktown Festival is an amazing experience in a beautiful historic town and I will be returning !

And did I buy any books ? … that’s another blog post