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!
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.
I am very happy and excited to be involved with a project at my local library: the East Melbourne Community Seed Library project.
It is part of a work in progress to establish a free seed library at East Melbourne Library.
What is a seed library?
The East Melbourne Community Seed Library aims to build food resilience and promote sustainable gardens by sharing seeds to encourage the community to grow their own produce.
Collect (Borrow) Seeds There is a call for locals to Join a growing community who grow and share seeds by visiting the East Melbourne Library Seed Library. Residents will be able to collect seeds for their own garden and return seeds to contribute seeds to the Seed Library for others.
Local ? Help us to grow our Seed Library by harvesting seeds and donating them back to the library!
What am I doing?
I am drawing the images of the plant of the seeds in the packets. These will be on the front of each seed packet. I completed two and the Librarian was very pleased with the results and then provided a list of the other seeds they have.
Over the Easter long weekend, I spent time on these drawings.
Below are in various stages of completion. I am drawing two on each A4 watercolour page.
It is lovely to be able to share a commission. I have two other commissions this year that I will be able to share once they are made public by the organisations involved.
Chat to the East Melbourne Library emelcirc(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)melbourne.vic.gov.au and phone 9658 9600 for any enquiries.
Each year I have a tradition of sketching my Easter Hot Cross Bun,
This year is no different. This hot cross bun was given to me and was just perfect to draw and then eat!
I also sketched some nests, eggs and a bunny.
It is just a quick blog this week as I am spending the weekend working on a commission which I will share next week. It involves a lot of greens!
Please let me know if you have any questions about watercolour pencils or my sketches. I have lots of practical hints and tips on my blog, some are gathered here together.
Below are photos of my stall at Clunes Booktown Festival this weekend. I have arrived home and unpacked. Now putting my feet up.It was a wonderful weekend, meeting some lovely people. Thanks to everyone who dropped by to say hello and purchased my books or cards. I had some great conversations and met some lovely stallholders too. .
A big thank you to my good friend Louise who assisted once again all weekend and to Adam and Michaela who provided flew down from Queensland to wine and dine us and drive us around. All have signed up for next year! They also bought lots of books.
All books that did not sell on the day will be available on my ETSY website in the next few days.
Thanks Clunes and everyone for a wonderful weekend.
A few sketches this week. A wonderful on location event to sketch at the Melbourne Athenaeum Library for Melbourne Rare Book Week. The inaugural Gary Morgan Oration by Andrew May on Mwelbourne Inc “Little laws and the shaping of a frontier town.”
some sketches from the week. Some quick sketches in ink only. Others are longer sketches with watercolour pencils.
Most of my spare time has been the final preparations for next Sat/Sun Clunes Book Town Festival. I have four very heavy suitcases full of my drawn-in books, book and library-themed greeting cards, signs etc.
This is a major event in my year.
Clunes Booktown Festival. outside of Melbourne. is a book lover’s paradise. For a whole weekend, the main street is taken over by second hand book seller stalls There is also. newly published authors, readings, panel discussions and entertainment.
If you are coming drop by and say hello to me. I am in the old Bluestone Building.
There won’t be a blog next week as I will be at Clunes.
Yesterday I drew my watermelon, think it would be a great idea for a blog post. I wrote some notes on the pages, and then realised I had done this before, in 2023. I have reposted those step-by-step drawings.
The only difference is one change in colour. Yesterday I used Deep Red, previously it was Alizaron Crimson. This was not a specific decision. I just happened to have changed colours in my daily sketch kit. You can see the difference. It’s subtle, but there is one.
I also added Cream , as there was a yellowishness to some of the rind. The whole scan it a bit more yellow than the drawing. In the juicy part next to the rind is a light green, not yellow as seen here.
Step One
Waterbrush and the three watercolour pencil colours used . Alizaron Crimson, Pine Green and Grass Green
Draw the watermelon shape and outline directly with the watercolour pencil colour that is going to be used. The watermelon is red the skin is green.
Heavily and roughly add colour in the areas of of the watermelon that are darkest.
Step Three
Using the waterbrush, rest it in the coloured areas and pull the colour across the page. This adds a lighter colour to areas of the page.
Step Four
Wait to dry, then add more colour in some areas to give depth and texture, Dabbling the watercolour brush on areas of colour can give, texture, and remove any hard lines. Add hard lines with a sharpened watercolour pencil along some of the skin and just some of the darkened areas of the watermelon.
On Saturday I held a “Nature Sketching with Watercolour Pencil” class at the Royal Botanic Gardens of Victoria. I had been invited by Friends of the Garden and held a class in February for Summer and this one was for their Autumn calendar.
We set the tables up in the courtyard next to Plant Cottage, where the Friends are based. After a light rain shower. the blue skies appeared and we were very fortunate to have two wonderful hours outside.
A lovely group of 12 attendees learnt about watercolour pencils, water brushes and sketchbooks before finding a place near the cottage to sketch. Some had not done any art since high school, there were a few botanical artists and one professional artist. Hopefully, they all took away something. For some people it is motivating and inspiration, for others it is techniques,
There is so much to sketch in the gardens and it is so relaxing to observe a piece of nature as you sketch it.
Below is a step-by-step process of using watercolour pencils to draw a red hot poker plant. Using the colours :
Light Chrome Yellow
Pale Geranium Lake
Grass Green
Chrome Green Oxide
The first is sketched quickly and quite heavily with watercolour pencils
The Second sketch is after I have added a little water to the pages, moving it slightly. You can see that the pigment becomes activated and you can move it around on the page.
The Third sketch is after I have waited for the page to dry and I have gone over the sketch with the colours. I add more detail with a sharpened pencil. I build up the density of the colour and add the impression of detail, with specific lines.
I probably could have done a fourth sketch to complete it, but I ran out of page and time.
This sketch shows how my sketches have the unfinished look. It is not a great scan. but you can see how some areas are finshed with water added and sme remain only in pasncil, and I have added the outlines of some cactus in the background,
I did another sketch just before class, experimenting with Pink Madder
The students did one 20-minute sketch before moving to another space and a different plan of scene and then one more move.
