It was so lovely to get out and sit in the Fitzroy Gardens and sketch this morning. I sat on the grass, listened to the magpies, and connected with nature. I sat on my coat on the wet grass as it gave the view I wanted of this pine tree. It has this great swooping branch down to the ground. The Melbourne CBD buildings and St Patrick’s Cathedral in the background are in pen only.

They are watercolour pencils : FaberCastell- Pine Green, Grass Green and Ultramarine.

When sketching, there are always choices to make about what to include and what to highlight. Today it was all about the tree and its branches. I had to add the blue sky as it was such a beautiful day. If this is Winter in Melbourne, I like it.

It was my first day out and sketching for a week. I had been inside.

I had a cold when away and spent two days in a nice hotel, I tried to do a few sketches from the window, but the focus was obviously on my cold medicines. All better now!

Once back in Melbourne, it was all home sketching as I put my feet up and had a quiet week.

The next two weeks’ blog posts will be about Melbourne Rare Book Week. It is a week of Melbourne-wide programs of free talks and events that celebrate the importance of books and literature in life. I am the official sketcher and will be sketching on location at most of the 20 events and sharing them here and on social media. View the events and book here.

I will also be talking at an event about my “You Can’t Draw in Books” display. This is the opposite of Rare books. They are the books that are about to be discarded. I have drawn on a page, illustrating what is being described on the page.

See you next week.

happy sketching

Alissa