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Christmas carolling sketches

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It is the season for Christmas events and celebrations.  I sketch at some, but not all, depending on the circumstances. This week I was fortunate to attend a Christmas concert at St Michael’s church in Collins Street, Melbourne. 

I walk past this 1869  built church everyday, but have never been in. On this night I experienced the church’s rich history, design and beauty while listening to The Tudor Choristers sing beautiful traditions old and new carols. I was able to sketch the event, while absorbing the music and surroundings. However I did put my sketchbook down when the audience were invited to stand and sing Once in Royal David City, Away in a Manger, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, O Little Town of Bethlehem and O Come All Ye Faithful. Wonderful.

The next day I met with some Melbourne sketching friends and experienced another group of carollers, this time from a local community, At Christmas Square in Melbourne city. This was a lot more informal and singers came and left the group to talk to people passing by. Angela and I stopped and sketched and sang along to everything we could.  That is a major plus of having been in a choir – you get to learn the words to the second and third verses of songs !

This is my Christmas sketch of the tree in Christmas Square. I think that I will use it to print on the Christmas cards I send to family  and friends. 

Of course, you can purchase Christmas cards of my drawings from my Etsy store online. But be quick, as Christmas is getting closer and postage is taking longer to arrive !

 

 

sketching weekend in Port Fairy

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Last weekend I spent a delightful weekend away in the delightful Port Fairy, four hours from Melbourne . The historic seaside village of Port Fairy is a unique example of a perfectly preserved 19th century shipping port. The little township has retained its old world character and there is an extraordinarily rich variety of architecture.   

POPULATION 3100 – peak periods > 10,000 – Folk Festival > 40,000

(Source: Port Fairy Moyne Shire : Official tourism website of Port Fairy and Moyne Shire )

I was visiting Port Fairy as I am having an exhibition there in next February at the wonderful Blarney Books & Art  and wanted to look at the gallery space and meet the lovely owner Jo. 

 

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I caught the train to Warnambool and then a short connecting bus ride to Port Fairy. I carry my Moleskine Watercolour sketchbook, Lamy Safari ink pen and watercolour pencils with me everywhere. This blog is my journal of sketches from the weekend. It includes my different styles of sketching and drawing, depending on time, opportunity and inclination. I feel like I have captured my weekend on paper and looking back at it will bring back memories of the time and place.

 

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I walked around  the nearby Griffith Island. The lighthouse and bird (above) were sketched on location. The shells and seaweed drawn back at my cosy accommodation at Hanley House Edwards Den in the evening. It was an idyllic day.

The Port Fairy Lighthouse was built in 1859 (41 feet above high watermark) and is on Griffith Island. Griffiths Island is also home to a large colony of muttonbirds, who nest in burrows in the ground. 

I saw the dead Muttonbird (Shearwater) on the beach at the end of my walk and sat on the beach to draw its angelic wings as it was buried in the sand. I had seen a few dead muttonbirds on the island (thousands roost live there in summer) but this is the first one I wanted to draw.

 

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On Sunday I met with a sketching friend, Angela who took me on a tour of Port Fairy and we sketched some of the sights. It has so much to offer visually and historically. I am returning in February and will do more sketching then. 

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As well, as seeing the sights, we visited a local Church fair, where Angela’s friend Val was face painting. A group of four small girls arrived with parents and Angela offered to lend a hand. It was an unexpected and delightful time of the day. The young girls were very happy with the results of the newbie face painter! I was happy to sketch the painters.

I am really pleased with my captures on paper from the weekend.

One month ’til Christmas

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It is only 4 weeks ’til Christmas and this weeks blog is a shameless self-promotion of my range of Christmas Greeting Cards ! Please spread the word .They are available for purchase online on my Etsy store. for $5.50 each Australian dollars .www.etsy.com/au/shop/AlissaDukeimg_0042
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OR you could give the gift of a set of Greeting cards from my drawings of feathers, nests or library books and  ladders to write in or give in a frame.

Not long now….

How to make a Christmas pudding (card)

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How to make a Christmas pudding (card)

This is my ‘recipe’ of how  I made my new Christmas Pudding greeting cards  The cards are available for purchase on my Etsy online store  at www.etsy.com/au/shop/AlissaDuke .

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Here is the finished pudding ready to consume (or write on as a Christmas card)

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 The first step was to decide on the recipe. Once I decided to draw a whole pudding, with cream and holly, I gathered my ingredients together.

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There was no real recipe – I added a bit of this colour and a bit of that , constantly adjusting intensity and colour. The left hand colours are in the pudding. Some are obvious, “main ingredients”, such as the browns and oranges. The blue ? – there  is just a hint in the darkest shadows.  
Christmas puddings are traditionally made months in advance. This sketch was begun in September, to have my cards scanned and printed in October and have for sale in November.

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Start with the basics
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Add more

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 Almost finished, but the few final touches make the difference.

Good enough to eat !!  or purchase and give at Christmas !   I hope that this whets your appetite !

Urban sketchers in Ivanhoe

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About 30 people from  Urban Sketchers Melbourne  met at Hatch Contemporary Art Space in Ivanhoe, Melbourne at 11am, then once again at 1pm after the sketch to share. This event is part of 2016 Pinpoint Contemporary Art Fair held by Banyule City Council. We sketched for the morning on postcard size paper (and some larger) on location in Ivanhoe. group

The sketchers included Lionel King visiting from Sydney and a few newcomers, including Colin, a local, who could give us local knowledge of where to sketch – a big thank you !
It was very surreal to be with Angela Williams, Alf Green and Lionel King, as the last time we were in one place together was in Manchester, UK in July this year for the Urban Sketching Symposium.

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looking down a driveway/laneway near Upper Heidelberg Road

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War Memorial on Upper Heidelberg Road

Above are my two postcards from the morning.

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The sketches were laid out on the tables at Hatch, as we chatted and enjoyed their hospitality of tea, coffee and biscuits !
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The finished “Postcards from Banyule” were then put in a display cabinet at the Ivanhoe Train Station (work will be displayed for 2 weeks).It is in the area where people buy their ticket or shelter from the weather, so should get a lot of people looking at them. (Ivanhoe is a suburb in the City Council district of Banyule).

sketching cars

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I draw cars – not very often, but I do draw cars. In the last few weeks I have attended a few events which provided the opportunity to practice and enjoy this.

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On Saturday Bernard Hornblower (sketcher) and Adam (photographer) went to Sandown Motor Racing for the Victorian Historic Racing Register (VHRR) raceday. It was a  full day of sketching from 9am til 4pm in chilly (but not rainy) conditions. VHRR  cater for people interested in cars from the early 1920s through to the racing and sports cars of the 1990s. We could walk in amongst the pits and sit close to the cars to sketch and to talk to the owners, support crew (ie their friends and family)  and the officials at the track. There were lots of interesting people with great tales to tell. And they are all passionate about their car ! It was exhilarating to hear the noise and see these old cars racing around the track, especially if I had been sketching it previously in the day.

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Drawing cars is a challenge.

In general, cars in the street in everyday life are hard enough.  You think you know what a car looks like ! but when you sketch you really need to LOOK at it .  Look at  where the wheels are  – how far from the door, how close to the edge of the bonnet…

For me, everyday sketching of a car, building, people, objects or my surroundings comes from practicing and thinking about the following concepts:

  • measuring the relative distance between parts of the object
  • measuring comparative sizes within an object
  • drawing a line down (or across a page) to see what it intersects

 Australian International Concour’s d’Elegance & Classic Motor Show

A few weekends ago I had the opportunity to sketch at Motorclassica Australian International Concour’s d’Elegance & Classic Motor Show in Melbourne at the Royal Exhibition Building with a few Melbourne Urban Sketchers.

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These are the from that day.
  

Sports cars are even more of a challenge than everyday cars,  as they present unusual shapes: from the large, sweeping and aerodynamic to the small and angular.

My method on the day is to make marks in pencil on the pages to show where the car is going to go on the page.  I put in some basic shapes and lines (using the concepts I mentioned above)  then I take out the ink pen and just start to draw !

Regular readers may recall the recent workshop I attended at Urban Symposium  in Manchester on Drawing Cars in the City. What did I learn and put into practice at these recent events? The concept of the angle of the axels and wheels ! It is small but important. A drawing of the body of a car can be wonderful, but if the wheel and tyres are at the wrong angle it stands out straight away. I try to avoid drawing an entire circle or ellipsis of the wheel and give the impression of it (and then let the viewer’s eye and mind fill on the rest of the detail).

I have my other car drawings together in an album on flickr Here are a few of themscan0018 10jun15-carsscan0005

New Greeting cards

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I am very excited that I have SIX new greeting cards available for purchase. They are printed from my watercolour pencil drawings.

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There are TWO new Christmas cards to join the four that I already have . These two Christmas images were drawn in the last two month, specifically for these Christmas cards. They were drawn on A4 watercolour paper . I tried to think of colourful Christmas themes that fit within my drawing style. I love to draw food and smaller objects. These two were great fun.

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fungi – drawn from fungi on small branches collected in Toowoomba

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Squirrel – Drawn from one of many photographs I took of squirrels in Kensington Gardens in London.

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Drawn from old keys that I have collected over the years,

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Old Law books on the shelves at work.

I have been working on this project for about two months. Four of the drawings are from my  sketchbooks over the last few years. It took a long time to decide which drawings would look good on cards and appeal to other people. Just because a drawing looks good, doesn’t mean that it will make a good card.

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The excitement of taking delivery and unpacking my new cards

Once again, my local printers Print Together, have reproduced the subtle colours and lines of watercolour pencils. The cards were delivered last Wednesday and I have spent the last few days, putting envelopes inside them and sealing each one in a cellobag. Yesterday I started to take photographs of the cards to put up on my Etsy online store. It was a lovely sunny day, so I went to the park.

They are now available for purchase from my Etsy online store for $AUD 5.50.

travels of a geisha sketch

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In July I had an exhibition as part of Melbourne Rare Book Week called “You Can’t Draw in Books?”  where I drew in books that were about to be thrown away, or that I bought for a few dollars.  The next step for them  would have been the bin.

I gave the books a new life by drawing on the pages with my watercolourpencils. The image I choose to draw, reflects the words on the page.

“You Can’t Draw in Books?” is now installed as exhibition again at my local library East Melbourne Library  until November 26 2016

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One of the books I drew in was Memoirs of a Geisha, a fascinating novel. It was a best seller when it was published, but now you can now find a copy in any charity shop in the  book section.
Below are the steps of drawing the geisha on the in the book.

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I choose the geisha drawing for my flyers, which I have pinned up in local cafes.

new and old pencils

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I have finally finished scanning and uploading my three sketchbooks from my three week UK holiday .

Now I can reflect a little of the practical side of my UK sketching . There are two parts to this post: a few new colours I used in England and the discovery of a new pencil colour.

PART ONE – NEW COLOURS FOR ENGLAND

I was aware about the need potentially alter the colours I use in different country. When I moved from Sydney to Melbourne I had to buy new pencils for the colours of Melbourne buildings and wrote a blog post) . Getting the colour right is important to me. There had been a discussion leading up to the Urban Sketchers Manchester Symposium on their facebook group about watercolours people could use. People discussed the different greens for English trees and also the reds for Manchester buildings. In an example of the generous sharing nature of the group, Linda Toolsema kindly tested a whole range of watercolours and translated them to the equivalent watercolour pencils to assist me. It was invaluable and I was able to choose some extra colours to take with me.

I use FaberCastell Albretch Durer Watercolour pencils

NEW COLOURS                                           USUAL COLOURS

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Midland Hotel, Manchester, with its red brick and terracotta

PART TWO – NEW PENCIL COLOURS

I use Payne’s Grey a fair bit.  I know that French Ultramarine & Burnt Umber combined make a great shadow, but often for the way I draw, just the one colour is useful  – and Payne’s Grey is it !

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My Payne’s Grey pencil got smaller and smaller and then I lost my spare. I could not find an art shop in Manchester or York that sold single Faber Castell watercolour pencils. It was not until my final week in London that I could buy one. I used this tiny pencil until the last moment when I bought the new one.

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In London at the amazing art shop L Cornelissen & Son   (above) I finally found my Paynes Grey and proudly showed the assistants my tiny pencil.

Cornelissen & Son was established in 1855 and has been trading in London as artists’ colourmen since then. Cornelissen is known throughout the world as a specialist niche supplier of art materials from premises that a 19th Century apothecary would recognize.

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However, along the way I found a shop that had another lovely FaberCastell watercolour pencil Dark Sepia, which does not replace Payne’s Grey, but I immediately fell in love with. It has a lovely warmth that is great for buildings.

I am not experimental in my everyday art materials and sketchbooks. I enjoy using my watercolour pencils in my Moleskine Watercolour sketchbook. I am still learning about them and enjoying the pleasure of drawing.

 

 

 

Sketching Mum’s favourite London

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I have almost finished scanning and uploading my three UK holiday sketchbooks to my flickr website. Every sketch holds a memory of a time and place and I feel like I want to show you them all. These blogs have been more of a ‘holiday snaps’ than art talk. I did not know where to start and stop sharing my English holiday sketches on my blog.

However, my mother (and travelling companion) has recently mentioned a few places and events that express what London means to her.  I have taken her suggestions to form the basis of my blog this week.

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Mum & I in Regents Park, London

I have taken Mum’s words and added my sketch

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  •  the green spaces, so many lovely squares. We were using our Oyster Card just like all the locals and other tourists – Russell Square, King’s Cross, Jubilee Line, Westminster!!!!

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the places to visit like British Museum and Library

 

 

 

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  • then there is beautiful Regents Park, an oasis in the busy streets around Baker Street. Pity we had a little trouble finding our way back to Bloomsbury

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  • London is the red buses, telephone boxes and post boxes

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  • not forgetting that time we sat eating lunch after hearing the ‘Bells of St. Clements’

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  • and looking down the street at the Royal Courts of Justice.

London is all that and more……………