Sydney Urban Sketchers at Town Hall

Hero Pen (bent nib), De Atramentis Archive ink with watercolour wash. 270gsm paper.

Yesterday our local Urban Sketchers group gathered at Sydney Town Hall. It's a fantastic area for interesting architecture with the surrounding buildings of the Town Hall and St Andrew's Cathedral as well as the Queen Victoria Building in the next block.

 

 

I've signed up for Paul Wang and Liz Steels' expressive sketching workshop in March, so my goal was to try to loosen up with watercolour and less line. An A4 Beta Stillman and Birn from Larry Post last year (the thick pages are great for working wet on wet, so I've been saving it for when I'm feeling more courageous) served well for this. Fate also had a hand with my other choices as my favourite Lamy pen and waterbrushes are sadly missing somewhere. However, with the most perfect of timing, Liz brought along a new Hero pen from her Penang/Singapore trip! I've tried a similar pen with a bent tip (Sailor pen) before and it gives a lovely variation in line thickness as you draw.

 

 





A strategy which worked well yesterday was to lay a first layer of wash down on one page for the watercolour only sketch, and then whilst that dried, sketched with the Hero pen in more detail on the other page. Picking up on preferred patterns and shadows from the detailed pen sketch that could then be layered back onto the watercolour sketch as the progressing layers dried.

 

Sydney Town Hall is one of Australia's finest examples of French Second Empire architecture. Designed by architect J H Willson in 1868, it is said to be inspired by Hotel de Ville in Paris. Festoons, finials and Mansard pavilions - lots to learn about this style of architecture that I have not drawn before.

 

These sketching mornings always pass so quickly. With not much time to go I found this carved angel figure at the front door of the St Andrew's Cathedral. So many, many, many more things to sketch in this area. Looking forward to returning.

Chinese Garden of Friendship

 

Some very relaxing sketching was to be had at the Chinese Garden of Friendship, Darling Harbour Sydney last Friday with Suzi, Ethna and Lorna. Well at least the environment was relaxing (a good balance for my brain straining to understand the Pavilion design and how to draw the tiles). Smack in the middle of the city we were oblivious to all except what we sketched and the sounds of the waterfalls. 

 

 

 

I was very pleased to find a low angle to draw this Pavilion from in order to fully appreciate its height and grandeur.  I trialled 2 permanent Pigma pens in a Sepia that I had picked up from Larry Post. I used the Micron 01 to draw the Pavilion and then the Brush Pen to add the heavy shading. It gives a good punch to the shadows which I then was able to add more watercolour over the top of to even out the colours with the rest of the sketch. The foreground rocks and the trees were completed in my usual black ink.

 

 

This was the final double page spread in my A4 watercolour moleskine after I had finished the watercolours at home. Would have been great to get the full dragon wall in my sketchbook but time did not allow. I had a lot of fun drawing those clouds above and the water below the dragon. I would like to do more of this style at some stage.