A conversation with my local Melbourne Service Library librarian, Linda has led to my first display for a long time. The Library has almost returned to normal, after almost a year of lockdown in Melbourne. We still need to check in with QR codes and masks are still required.

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Along with Tanya, a Melbourne artist we decided on a display of our sketchbooks to inspire other people to get their sketchbooks out again, be creative, and start getting back into some sort of normal life. We called it everyday Art. It is the art that we do everyday and also of the art of sketching everyday objects.

My sketchbooks on display

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Tanya’s sketchbooks on display

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Books from my collection

I have put some of my own books in a display cabinet to for anyone to also be inspired by.

Library books to borrow

I chose some books from the Library shelves and put them on a trolley to be borrowed.

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Tanya and I also invited locals to join us in the local Fitzroy Gardens to sketch. We hope to inspire and motivate people to get creative again. It was a glorious 28 degrees with blue skies and sunshine. The park was full of families and picnickers.

Our display may inspire and motivate people who visit the library to get creative again. Or it may entertain them on their next visit to the Library.

Some of my blog posts are planned in advance and other just happen.

Yesterday I went to my local library to collect a book I had on reserve. I came home with four books, three magazines, four plant cuttings and two bees.

It is these last objects that my blog is about today.

My local East Melbourne Library (part of Melbourne Library Service) has a community garden out the back, (including a beehive). It was created by locals with help from a City of Melbourne grant for locals to enjoy. It was started a few years ago and was not touched over the past year while we were all in lockdown in Melbourne. Now we are gradually opening up some enthusiastic volunteers gave it a well-deserved cleanup and hard trim.

As soon as I had the idea I started to visualise how I could see the plants across two pages of my sketchbook. I picked the plants, found the bees caught up in spidersweb, and did a quick sketch on the page to see where I wanted to place each plant.

I carried my precious cargo home and quickly started drawing them, as the plants wilted quickly in front of me. I have kept the bees and added them to my collections of bugs, feathers, and nests.

It was not what I had planned for the afternoon, but I felt the need to document it and am pleased with the result. I could have spent a lot more time on this page, but have decided to leave it as is.

Below are some of my previous pickings

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and here are the books I borrowed

• English Pastoral by James Rebanks
• three Country Life magazines (UK)
• The Button Box : the story of women in the 20th Century told through the clothes they wore
• The Cartographers Secret by Tea Cooper
• the Greek Coffin Mystery by Ellery Queen
• Tell Tale by Jeffrey Archer

We‘re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo. How about you, you, you. You can come too, too, too. We‘re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo …

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This past week I spent a day at Melbourne Zoo with Kaz, a sketching friend. We were there from 9.00 til 4.30 and sketched all day, with a short break for lunch. Kaz is a regular zoo visitor and knew the layout and where the animals were.

I had an A4 watercolour sketchbook (bigger than my usual Moleskine 13cm x 19 cm watercolour sketchbook) and my usual watercolour pencils. I had also chosen some charcoal and graphite pencils. I was keen on doing some larger loose sketching.

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Animals probably won’t stay still , or then again they might. We decided to stay and sketch if the animal was there and stayed and move on when it did. This approach seemed to work. The kangaroos were close to the fence and did not move at all. There were about six or more of them. Two emus would come and go and I would try to capture them quickly when they were close.

This Black Swan was preening and cleaning itself, feather by feather, standing up in some shallow water. I was on a walkway looking down and could see the glorious feathers. All of the wing feathers were ruffled, like flowers or fabric. Every now and then it would rise up and spread its wings to dry.

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Below are some photos from my close encounter with a Red Tailed Black Cockatoo. We had been sketching and watching him for a while in the bird enclosure. Kaz was talking to him as he sat in the tree just above us and said “come down” and he did. It flew down and sat on the rail in front of me and started nibbling and turning the pages in my sketchbook. An amazing experience.

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We spent a long time at some of the enclosures and probably saw about one third of the zoo. It was wonderful opportunity to observe.

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These are only a few of the 32 pages of sketches I did on the day. See them all in my Melbourne Zoo Flickr Album. Some sketches are a few lines on the page, not always capturing the essence. It was a wonderful motivating day. I felt very pleased with my achievement and immediately wanted to go back. I am considering Zoo membership so that I can come and go for shorter amounts of time and don’t feel the need to commit to a whole day.

If you can’t get to a zoo or animals , I have been told about this live webcam site for animals EXplore

I have had one of my watercolour pencil drawings of an “open book” printed on a greeting card and available on my ETSY store for purchase. It is one in my “old books” series.

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I have started to use these cards myself to send to people and adding extra to them, by drawing on the card. I hope to encourage others to purchase one and do this too. So I have been thinking about the many ways that it could be customised or personalised.

Some other ideas I have had include

• streamers
• butterflies
• flowers
• stars
• words or letters or numbers
• rainbow
• hearts
• balloons
• Christmas themed

Here is one I have been experimenting on today. I will probably reposition the butterflies a bit, so they are flying out of the book and maybe change their size.

what do you think? any ideas ?