Babysitting

Talk about quick sketches!

Henry does not keep still for a second, even while asleep. Matthias was sick and sore that day after having his tonsils etc out. He was sitting watching endless repeats of Thomas the Tank Engine, playing with a little hoop, hence the funny shape. My drawings are not great, but that is what the blog thing is about. The baby with 2 eyes is not Henry .. just trying to picture what a baby in one spot might look like!

garden bench

I have had a day to myself and thought I would do a pencil drawing in disciplined tonal fashion, and post the result, however it turned out. I have not drawn for ages!! (And it shows.)

It's been the first cool day(below about 38ºC ) in Perth in a long while, so it was a pleasure to sit on the patio in a beautiful sea breeze, and 'do' the view out to the garden.

I loved the charcoal drawings that Perth artist, George Haynes did some years ago, in crisp black and white, no smudges, no grey, just superb calligraphy. Well , I came nowhere near with my 6B pencil! The sketch is a bit bigger than that posted, but the lost bits are no loss, except to the balance of the composition. I found I got tired after an hour or so, and lost the energy of it, which is a shame, because it started quite well. Probably got too ambitious with the sweep. Next time I will restrict myself to perhaps just the little frangipani tree.

My garden is mostly my creative effort too. Very little gets done in these hot months, and we struggle with sandy soils, little water, heat and quite a bit of wind, but have a few hardy characters among the plants, which continue to shine through the year: roses, geraniums, frangipani, michaelmas daisies, clivia, 'mirror bush' are a few.

Many Australians are going over to more indigenous plants, but I'm happy with my old friends.

Dordogne postcard

A friend recently sent me a postcard from very near Tremolat, and I used it to do this little water colour.I have tried a quite large (for me) oil painting of the view from Tremolat, and got very involved in trying to see it from a sort of Hockney point of view, with the result that it is quite laboured. It was a relief to paint a similar scene is a quick and loose fashion. I'll try and attach an image of my oil painting below. My sister Gillian is the model.

I want to work on this image again, as a diptych, perhaps.

Cat Drawing

I have always felt pleased with these drawings I did - a long time ago - of our old cat, Cobweb (Cobbie). A somewhat cantankerous calico cat, she was very beautiful and much loved, giving much affection in return, but only if she felt like it. She never quite forgave us for keeping her daughter, Mistletoe, and her happiest days were after poor Mistletoe died, aged about 19! Cobbie lived past 20 years. I think my drawings show my affection for her, shifting position on a kitchen chair.

The blogging life, step 2

Here is step 2 in the new blogging life, and I have managed to remove the unused page areas from my sketch. This is from the same sketch book as day 1's picture.

I am not managing the size of the pictures well, and they become too large and quite ugly when you click on them. It is only a little moleskin notebook! I think this is to do with my scanning process.

I tried to catch the appearance of the small rocky islands that surround and hide the entrance to the ancient and unspoilt (apart from crowds of tourists!) port of Hvar. It was developed by the Venetians, whose distinctive architecture and decoration abounds in the beautiful town, with its fine town square, Venetian armory, and its narrow streets winding up the mountainside to a spectacular fortress.

The brilliant artist will have sketched prolifically in the town. I did take lots of photos, and we didn't sit about too much. I was with very fit and active veteran rowers, and every time foot was set on land, there was much striding forth!

left: the blogger and her mate

right:Hvar harbour from fortress

stepping out

Here comes a hesitant attempt at posting a sketch into the big "out there", following in the more confident and competent footsteps of my two loved sisters.

This is a sketch from a recent holiday spent on an old wooden sailing boat on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. A friend gave me a moleskin sketch book and a little box of watercolours as an encouragement to draw. While I felt the drawings were hopeless at the time, in retrospect they have provided me with more joy than the photographs we took. There is a completely different persective, and because one studies the subject to draw, the memory of it is more complex.

This shows the dry rocky coastline between Hvar and Korcula, with mountainous range appearing behind.

(When clicked on, my drawing comes up too large. Please reduce to 50% to get closer to the size of the sketch)