I am slowing scanning two and a half sketchbooks from my September UK holiday.

This week I am featuring some of the food and drink sketches that I did with my watercolour pencils along the way. Some are quick sketches, due to limited time, or needing to eat ! Others were slower, more considered drawings.

I also often sketched the place we were eating  in my sketchbook, providing context and a background to the story. Sometimes it was a choice of the food or the place .However, today’s blog is just about the food and drink.

Meals on the plane. Quickly decide what to sketch, as there is only a limited amount of time until the flight attendants collect it all back. With the food on the fold down table it can be a little tight on space, but that never stops me.

Sketching on the train. Mid-meal sketch. There is no need to sketch the full meal, sometimes an empty plate tells the story. At some stage, hunger takes over.

Breakfasts – most days it was cereal, but how could I resist sketching one or two of these full English breakfast meals. I often don’t complete the full circle of the plate outline. Just the hint of the plate is enough.

Dinner and lunch provide opportunities to sketch food.

We had a few special occasions too. 

and of course, a cup of tea or coffee.

I am currently planning my Spring/Summer “Travel sketching with watercolour pencil” classes in Melbourne. There will be a class for Food & Drink sketching as well, as there is so much fun to be had and experimenting to do with colour and texture. 

I will be on holidays in the United Kingdom for the month of September. So my blog will be taking break from this weekend.

I will be sketching all the time everyday and plan to instagram my travel sketches daily (wifi permitting).My instagram account is alissaduke1.  Follow me there.

I am travelling with my mother , who lives  interstate. This year (as in previous years) I have drawn on envelopes of the letters that I have been posting to her during the year. I have drawn things and places in the UK. 

Here are just a few:

will we see badgers? I dont think so, but you never know…

Goodwood Revival Motor Racing

Hegdehogs ! The plan is to visit Mrs Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital and see hedgehogs there

I watched a documentary on the Great Fire of London. So we will be visiting Monument

a dormouse – so very English. but I do not think that we will see one.

Big Ben – under scaffolding and not working. Luckily we have seen it before

I often drawn on envelopes . See more mail art projects on my Flickr page https://www.flickr.com/photos/alissaduke/albums/72157628133709960

In the meantime – Happy sketching !!!

Here are some more drawings from my art competition entry to Blarney Books and Art Prize entry. I wrote about the particulars last in last week’s blog and posted some initial drawings. I have now drawn on forty nine pages. They are almost all complete and I will send the entry in the next week or so . I will be scanning and adding them all to an album on my Flickr website

Here are  pages . Enjoy! I am having great fun doing the drawings.

and some others

This weekend I sketched with some students that have been on some of my recent travel sketching classes. We met at the local Kere Kere Green cafe in Melbourne’s Fitzroy Gardens and spent a  few hours talking art. 

The blackboard sign in the cafe seemed to have been written just for us.

“The best way to relax is to do what you love”

I brought along a lot of watercolour pencils that I own, but do not use as part of my daily sketch kit in my customised pencil wrap and the 26 colours I use.

It was a good opportunity for them to see the range of colours that are produced (in this case by Faber Castell) and play to see what colours that they would and wouldn’t use. I don’t have the full range of colours  but it was  a good insight into the sort of colours available – and there are some strange ones.

We stayed inside and sketched our food and surroundings, As this was not a class, I did not impose a 15 minute limit on sketches. This session, we ate cold food and drank cold coffee, as we were too busy sketching it. 

It was such fun just to sketch and chat and to be able to share my knowledge of watercolour pencils with people who have been introduced to a fun new medium. For some it has also been their introduction to sketching . I think that we will be having more of these play days.

Today I held another wonderful Travel Sketching class in Melbourne. Nine enthusiastic sketchers joined me to hear and learn about the concept of travel sketching and also using watercolour pencils to capture their travels on the page. Some had sketched a little before, others a bit more, many already owned the watercolour pencils.  

I have held a few travel sketching classes in the last year and a few areas of discussion seem to come up each time. A common issue is not knowing where to start when sitting in front of a scene, and so then not starting at all. 

On Saturday when we walked out the front of East Melbourne Library where the classes are held, a lovely street scene met us.  What to draw? Where to start?

  I have found that setting a short timeframe helps people.  I choose 15 minutes sessions in my class. When travelling you need to seize opportunities to sketch. In 15 minutes you have to make a decision very quickly on what to sketch.

Sometimes  at first, people panic, but settle on something. We then move areas and sketch another view or subject. It is easier the second time (or the third) to choose what to sketch. When you look back on your page it is a reminder of what you can achieve in a short time frame.  Of course, over time and with practice and confidence in your ability and tools, you can achieve more in a  short time frame.

These are two scenes that attracted me The ironlace terrace and the little cottage against the large brick wall. 

The majority agreed that when you sketch you forget everything else – time goes quickly 

I also learn so much . There are so many people who don’t start, even though they want to because they ‘can’t draw’, who then produce amazing lines on paper capturing the event and how proud they are of what they have on the page.

I also am reminded of how very fortunate I am to have the passion for sketching and the opportunity to share it with others.

Join me next Saturday for Travel Sketching Food and Drink. The same concepts but applied to food and drink travel sketching as the travel sketching class. The meals that you have along the way are part of your own unique adventure and can be captured on the page. You can have your cake and sketch it too! Book here https://www.trybooking.com/386957

This weekend I have been catching up with life, being slightly social and working on future projects. I have been inspired and motivated by discussions with my old and new sketching friends. ie friends who have been sketching for years and those that have just started.

This page has slow, medium and fast sketches that I completed during the week.

SLOW drawings

This is a very small part of a commission I am working on. I have my original drawing and then photocopied it and added colours to the photocopies. I  am experimenting with adding sky  and ground – how much and what intensity. I am working on this drawing over many nights. To be completed by the end of August.

without sky or grass

with grass

with grass and sky

MEDIUM  sketch

Coffee and catch up with a sketching friend. We talked and sketched for over two hours. My coffee and pear tarte are examples of my travel sketching style that I will be talking about in my upcoming Melbourne ‘Food and Drink travel sketching” classes in July and August. The sketches are often just the impression of detail, leaving the rest to your imagination, The cup  and tarte  are only half finished. I have also included the branding of “Laurent” patisserie, and written about my catchup. Join me . Book here 

QUICK sketch

These are some of the quickest sketches I have done, They were drawn from the laptop screen from a live event. I was watching the Goodwood Festival of Speed Pre and Post War car racing.

These sketches are on three pages of my sketchbook. I experiment with using, black watercolour pencil, then coloured and then black ink. I decided early to sketch small on the page. They were on the screen for literally seconds. 

Any hints and tips for sketching car racing most welcome ! I will be attending a big event later this year and hope to sketch a lot of old automobiles.

Happy sketching !!

The 46th ANZAAB Australian Antiquarian Book Fair
Friday 6 July to Sunday 8 July 2018 is presented by the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB) as part of Melbourne Rare Book Week

Admission to Melbourne Rare Book Fair is free

My sketches from the Fair. All sketched on location with Lamy Safari Joy ink pen and watercolour pencils in a Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook. 

to see all of my sketches from the week visit my flickr album

It’s getting towards the end of Melbourne Rare Book Week. I have combined the last two days into one blog post.

It will culminate is Rare Book Fair on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Thirty-two Australian and international antiquarian booksellers will offer a rich and diverse array of items catering for all who genuinely love print on paper and who share a passion for books. Millions of dollars worth of rare and collectible books, maps, photographs and manuscript material will be on offer at this major event in the Australian antiquarian book calendar, at prices to suit all levels of collecting.

talks

Criminals, coppers, and columnists: The craft of collecting crime
State Library Victoria
Daniel Wee

From the seedy back alleys of early 20th century Melbourne to the unforgiving landscape of the high country, discover the gritty and sordid underbelly of crime through the State Library’s rich and surprising collections. From heart-wrenching letters to intriguing scrapbooks, Daniel Wee will tell the tale of some of Victoria’s most violent crimes.

Ghastly Gothic reads for kids 
Melbourne Library Service
Jeanette Becklar

Can you remember the first scary story you ever heard?The dark, dangerous, mysterious and spooky have always held a fascination for young readers.Come and listen to some favourite ghastly stories and be inspired to create your own Gothic masterpiece. You will discover the compulsory elements to write or illustrate a Gothic story. Suitable for 10 years and over

My drawing for the posters for this event.

The Gothic novel : A Grand Tour through lurid worlds
Melbourne Library Service
Chris Browne

2018 is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein and is also the 200th anniversary of birth of Emily Bronte, author of Wuthering Heights. To mark these occasions, we are presenting a brief history of the Gothic novel, highlighting important elements and influences of the Gothic tradition. Readings will be given from key books, and brief clips from influential films will be shown. Chris’s personal choice of collectible editions of Gothic novels will also be presented.