Coffee and Cake

Still on tiny folding sketchbooks – reserving this one for recording coffee and cake at monthly sketchmeets with my Casey U3A class. A nice way to spend a cold and rainy afternoon when it's too miserable to be sketching outdoors.

#Sailorfude pen, watercolour, homemade concertina sketchbook, 3 1/2" x 21". 

A Tiny Walled Garden

Loving this tiny homemade sketchbook. A panoramic sketch of our tiny walled garden sure makes it look huge!

#Sailorfude pen, watercolour, homemade concertina sketchbook, 3 1/2" x 28”.

Canberra Sketches

A moving Last Post Ceremony at the National War Memorial, Canberra. My brain was suffering from overload after the museum tour. This must be the mother of all war museums! 

I started the sketch on the ground floor when we first arrived and finished it from the first floor just before the ceremony. At each ceremony (at the end of each day), the story of one soldier who lost his or her life is read out. That’s the eternal flame in the pool. Circling cockatoos had a lot to say.

This was sketched over lunch at the National Museum but I experimented with a second colour after coming home. 

I must say it adds some pizzaz to the sketch!


#FaberCastellPittPen and #TombowMarker, #HandbookJournal 5.5"x5.5"

Berwick Anzac Ceremony 2019

A moving Anzac ceremony on 25th April at the little war memorial in Berwick, Victoria (an outer suburb south east of Melbourne). As completed on location. 

Note the flypast of 2 planes overhead. 

This is one of several small stone monuments at the site. 

My grandparents and parents were badly affected by WWII and I lived through the Malayan Emergency. When I was a child, my family hid snacks for me in a toy panda puppet during long car trips on the open road in case we were stopped by communist soldiers looking for food.

Marker pens, #MoleskineWatercolourAlbum, 5x8” 

Chinese Peranakan Dress

The Chinese Peranakans are the decendants of Chinese who went to live in SE Asia in about the 15th century and intermarried with local women. They have a culture evolved from a mix of Chinese, Malay, Indonesian and European cultures. 

This was sketched on location at the Melbourne Peranakan Association Australia Inc. Annual Dinner and Dance. The men nowadays wear batik patterned shirts with western trousers and the ladies wear colourful sarongs with heavily embroidered blouses. 

Only the men stand still! 

I didn't get a chance to sketch the women but here is a photo of some beautiful sarongs and blouses (called a kebaya). My grandmother only ever wore an embroidered white kebaya but the modern kebayas are very colourful. They are said to have originated from blouses worn by Dutch women living in Indonesia. The lady on the extreme right wears the traditional beaded shoe.

#FaberCastellPittPen, #HandbookJournal 5.5"x5.5"