Melbourne Rare Book Week 2024 (MRBW) was launched on Thursday night at Tonic House! The participating partners were invited for drinks and conversation before a fascinating talk by Wallace Kirsop about the beginnings of his book life. It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with MRBW from the past year, as well as others I see more often.

As the Official sketcher for MRBW I started with launch night.

AND here is the program – https://rarebooksmelbourne.com/events-2/ Have a look and book if in you are local or planning a visit. Some events have limited seating depending on the size of the organisation and building it is in, so you might want to book in and put it into your calendar now!

All events are free. Have a browse through the program. It is not all about expensive, high-end collectables, but also the sharing of stories behind the books in interesting collections of organisations and individuals.

MRBW runs 18-27 July and it is a very special one as it is the 10th year. The culminating event of MRBW is always the Australian Antiquarian Book Fair, presented by The Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB).

There are many more events this year, so many that I can’t sketch at them all, and will have to make some decisions about what I can get to. Most events are in Melbourne CBD, but some are a few suburbs away, a few even further afield. I take the week off work and document each event. sketching on location. The talks usually go for 45 minutes to one hour. In most cases, it involves people sitting and listening. I sit in the back row and sketch – sometimes the people in front of me are the feature and sometimes the building itself.

I am honored that my sketches from previous years feature on the bookmark this year and throughout the program. It is lovely to have a printed program. They are available throughout Melbourne at the partner organisations who are hosting events, and also in coffee shops and other places. Just contact me, if you would like one.

I am also giving a talk, (which I will not be sketching at) on “The Oldest Book in the Supreme Court Library: Statham’s Abridgement (1491) and its place in law reporting today”.

I have been sketching at MRBW since I moved to Melbourne and have been the official sketcher since 2015. I value the friendships I have made through this event and the connections and reconnections that I make every year.

I hope to see you there. Please introduce yourself if you are there and see me sketching.

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.