This Week In July

This week in July. Cold, rain, aches and pains are keeping me at home but a few sketches around the house and the exciting world news is keeping us occupied!

Here's another from my "This Week in..." series. 

We have grave concerns for our 5 Longfin Zebra Danios (how their fins have grown!). We got them last summer and were told by the fish shop that they would be fine to overwinter in our outdoor unheated bowl pond. Unfortunately it has been an unusually cold winter.

Here's hoping the warmer days and nights ahead will help get them through.

#Sailorfude pen, watercolour, colour pencil, #MoleskineWatercolourNotebook, 8.25”x 5".

A Trip to Singapore

Planning what tools and materials to take is part of the joy of being an Urban Sketcher! I sketched the tools I was taking with me on our recent trip away but only added the colours after getting home. 

I love using the yellow pouch on planes – light, scrunchable, easy to find in the seat pocket if you leave the cord hanging out and you can hang it up on those plane seat backs that have a hook! 

J bought that pouch in Japan in 2019 at a museum displaying the art of famed Japanese cartoonist Osamu Tezuka (the Father of Manga). I hardly used any of the tools I took in my blue stand-up case as family commitments filled my time. 

Climate change? Never experienced such long periods of turbulence.

A coffee/tea stop after meeting friends for lunch. Almost forgotten how to order coffee/tea the local way! Teh C is tea with evaporated milk. Killiney Kopitiam (Killiney coffee shop) is a coffee shop set up by a Hainanese immigrant from China in late 1919 on Killiney Road. There are now many many branches across the city. 

I ended up with this composite sketch due to being blocked by a huge tourist bus so had to move to complete the sketch. These gentrified old shop houses now are restaurants with their tables in a big night time outdoor eating area. Noisy, touristy and expensive but unexpectedly well patronised...by locals! 

Cities is something I’ve got out off practice with.

I didn’t have enough time to eat (or draw) all the things I wanted to. 

The trip home. Trying out a Daler Rowney passport size sketchbook I bought for $1.97!

#FaberCastellPittPen, watercolour, #MoleskineWatercolourAlbum, 5x8”. 

Last sketch – marker pen, #DalerRowney sketchbook.

A Dog Sketch

You know what they say "don't work with children or animals, neither sit long enough". Our son's dog Peach was enjoying the sun on the deck when I sat down to sketch her. She moved 3 times but I managed to complete a sketch of her...eventually!

#Sailorfude pen, watercolour,#Stillman&Birn Zeta Sketchbook, 7.5”x 7.5”.

Auction Sketch 2024

I finally took the time to finish this drawing I did at a recent house auction. Half the neighbourhood was there out of curiosity. We fell in love with the house – a renovated (and extended) 1900s miners cottage, cleverly staged for the auction. It passed at auction but sold later that day. 

Marker pen, #HandbookJournal 5.5" x 5.5".

#singaporeshopfrontchallenge 175.

This is 195 Sims Ave, Singapore. I love the Singapore Shopfront Challenges on Instagram. How could I pass on doing this one as my paternal grandparents lived on this same street in the 1950s. Their place (I think now gone), some distance away along the street was of the same style but with a proper front door. From what I remember it was a plain cream colour and my cousin says it had some Peranakan tiles on the wall. What a nostalgia trip! 

Disappointingly my fude nib insisted on producing only extra thick lines on this watercolour first sketch. 

Thank you Alice Lim #Eurekawanders for the photo.

#Sailorfude pen, watercolour,#Stillman&Birn Zeta Sketchbook, 7.5”x 7.5”. #singaporeshopfrontchallenge 175. 

Japanese Windflowers

This very overworked negative painting piece was an experiment but it's good enough to be one for my garden journal.

In March 2021 I planted three Japanese Windflowers (single pink) in a garden bed. They spread so well I was afraid they would take over the whole garden and consequently dug up a good many. I needn't have bothered because the three 40 plus degree days this past summer killed most of the remaining ones off and now I'm glad to have just a few survivors to nurture. Their simple flower heads are so pretty against our brick garden wall and the way they sway in the wind is a delight. Hopefully they will now fill this bed in the shade of a Crepe Myrtle tree before the next summer's heat does it's natural culling.

#Sailorfude pen, watercolour,#Stillman&Birn Beta Sketchbook, 8.5 x 5.5”.

Bunya Pine

For International Urban Sketchers Week 2024 I went to draw this unusual looking tree in a suburban street. A gardener came to ask why I wanted to draw this ugly tree. He told me he'd removed some branches without getting Council permission as the heavy branches with their sharp pointy leaves were a danger if they fell. This really tall Bunya Pine is endemic to Australia and harks back to the Mesozoic era when dinosaurs might have played a part in the dispersal of its pine cones. It played a significant role too in the culture of the indigenous people who held large Bunya Festivals to feast on the edible pines. The base of its trunk looks like a HUGE elephant's leg. The more I've read about this tree since this sketch the more I find it a fascinating tree! 

#Sailorfude pen, marker, #Stillman&Birn Nova Series (beige), 8.5" x 5.5".

#uskweek2024 #uskmelbourne