I carry my sketchkit with me everyday.

Below are my sketches from over the last week or so. You can see a variety of my sketching styles.

A week ago I was at The Melbourne Athenaeum Library at one of their beautiful Friday night concerts. I have been sketching these for many years and am familiar with the surroundings and set up. I have an hour to sketch.

Lunchtime. Strange weather in Melbourne this week. It was very cold and very hot. This was a great day to soak up some sunshine. It was probably about 30 minutes before it started to get too hot and I went back inside. I have sketched these lamps before and am familiar with what to notice in their style and design.

On the walk home from work through the gardens I saw the regular magpies that live there. The on-the-spot sketch was done very quickly as it was a very hot (37 degree) evening. I scribbled the black watercolour pencil on the page and added the water from a brush at home.

Later that night, I drew a magpie feather fromm my collection. I spent more time on this and built layers to get texture. I also added a shadow. This gives it weight and sometimes can make it look more realistic. This does does always work if the shadow is too dark, or gets confused with the actual object. I still have not mastered shadows.

On Saturday morning I met with some local sketchers at a local cafe for an irregular catchup session that we have. I brought along my England holiday sketchbooks for Cath to look through. It was another very hot day, and this is the view out the window.

On Saturday afternoon I gave a watercolour pencil sketching class at The Melbourne Athenaeum Library. This is at the end of my Residency. Below is the page where I explain about watercolour pencils and everyone plays with the pencils on the paper.

I am on a Jane Austen run at the moment, with books and movies . Here are some delightful shoes.

a wonderful Sunday afternoon of life drawing in the wonderful rooms at Abbotsford Convent, Abbotsford, Melbourne . Michaela (And Joe the skeleton) inspired by Belgian artist Delvaux, all to beautiful music chosen by JL Syndikas.Sketched in a old record book 

What will this next week bring?