I was not sure what I was going to write about this week, Hoerver a few hours in the beautiful Autumnal Melbourne weather produced a few sketches that encompassed the day.

Each sketch is just an impression of the moment, but together they capture the time I spent there.

I sketched the tree, which I later found out is a pin oak. I took a leaf home and drew it later, I like the combination of a sketch and more detail of part of the subject,

There was an intense blue sky and the tree tops shapes were clearly defined.

I have sketched magpies before. I know they don’t mind if you get close, but won’t necessarily stay around for long. I can follow them around, I start with their beak and head. I have to closely observe which feathers are white, blank or grey, Getting the eye in position is important, My wonderful watercolour pencils allow me to capture the shape and body in linework and add water to the pencil on the page to get the black colour, I decided not to add water to the whole page. My style is the unfinished look.

and then it got chilly and I headed home,

On Saturday morning I had a catchup with sketchers who had attended one of my Travel Sketching with Watercolour Pencil classes in the past.

Annette, Cath, Soraya, Robyn & I met at Kere Kere Cafe in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne. I am fortunate to be able to book the Community Table for this catchup.

It was an opportunity to talk art, ask questions, play with watercolour pencils for two hours. Everyone (including me) walked away motivated and inspired. They had either been travelling and could share their experinces, or were planning to travel, and could get ideas. I had a great time with these lovely sketchers!

I brought along all of my green Faber Castell Watercolour Pencils for everyone to play with. There are 20 green colours ! I collected some leaves aong the way.

It is good to know the range of colours available to be able to decide which ones suit what and where you sketch. We talked about the different colours you would use in different countries or even areas of Australia!

I carry four in my daily sketchkit.

• Earth Green
• Grass green
• Pine Green
• Chrome Green Oxide

Which greens do you use?

Happy sketching everyone !

On Saturday I spent the day house cleaning for my six-monthly apartment inspection by the Property Manager. The heavy duty cleaning products came out.

At the end of the day, I sat down and relaxed.And sketched. Anything is sketchable !

I remembered to take work in progress photos.

I did not spend a lot of time on this. It is just a sketch to capture the moment on the page. I was attracted to sketch these because of their bright colours.

I could have spent a lot of time on this, but it was a quick sketch,

The drawing below was also created with watercolour pencils. It was a long studied drawing, I love the detail watercolour pencils can produce.