I made sketchbooks

Watercolour sketchbooks are a pain - the paper is never as good as the 300gsm 100% cotton that I buy in sheets, unless the sketchbook is $100, and then I freak out about using it (or I think I would, I have never actually spent $100 on a sketchbook, but I suspect I would find it hard to use). So I had a go at making my own using any tutorial that said it was 'easy'. I did go down a lovely rabbithole of bookbinding - wow that looks like fun - but I'm not at the point of special tools and sewing things up. Yet. 

So this is a concertina sketchbook - the cover boards aren't attached to each other so it unfolds into a long strip like a concertina, but you draw on it page by page (if you want to). It's conceptually straightforward - take a bit of the lovely paper, make it into three strips, glue them together, fold them and add board covers and a ribbon. Lots of PVA, a bit of pretty scrapbooking paper and a glue stick. 

I am generally happy with it but despite best efforts my lack of neat-fingeredness shows through - the covers are too big and none of it lines up exactly as it should. But I've started painting in it (my summer project is pen and wash of the old style beach houses in my little beach town) and it's really nice. Because it's the good paper you can do both sides and despite some really wet washes it hasn't warped or bled at all.

This is the other style I did which isn't as pretty but has been quite useful - simply rings with holes in the paper and a covered back board. It keeps everything together and you can take it en plein air should I ever choose to do something so peculiar. This is slightly different lovely paper which is quite ivory in tone. I tore the pages rather than cut them so it's nice and raggedy at the sides.

And this is a poor copy of a Taiwanese artist (goes by J.Y. Drawing) who does these wonderfully detailed streetscapes using a fountain pen and quite wobbly lines. It's a fabulous combination of exact reproduction and impression. The bits I left out of this picture are cars and people which I'm still struggling with. 

Buildings and streetscapes

I'm really getting into the urban sketching. Not getting any better, but it's lovely to be playing about with watercolours again and, as a genre, it seems to be aimed at beginners. There are heaps of ideas and how-tos out in the world. So here you have random street scenes from around the world, as reduced to paint and paper by me. I think this is Thailand.

This one is definitely Japan because it said so on the photo. These are from Youtube videos by Jillee Arts who does lovely sketches. I don't sketch along though - I'm finding that too stressful. I watch her video, download the reference image, and take it from there by myself. So I end up somewhere quite different, but I can then go back and see why hers is so much better :)

This is a cafe in Prague, apparently. Nice.

This is just a random picture of a house that I thought might be useful to practice roof lines and odd balconies. And to see if I can paint 'derelict', which I think it gives? Maybe?

And another Jillee Arts one. I call this "jesus, I'd love a coffee" because I stuffed up painting the person so badly that I thought a FULL BEARD was the best way to fix it. 

Unexpected beach

I was actually going to have a weekend at home but then the weather forecast was for 36 degrees both days - and that's no fun in Canberra, so I went to see the sea. Which was nowhere near 36 degrees! A massive storm hit Canberra Friday evening and me about two hours later - lots of lightning and rain but luckily the beach kept power ... unlike poor Canberra, and number two's flight back to Melbourne was cancelled because the plane couldn't land, so disruption all round. 

Number two was in town as a finalist in a play-writing competition - he didn't win but there was still a cash prize for being a finalist and it was highly competitive, so we are very proud of him. And they flew him up to Canberra and put him up in a hotel for a night! Fancy. The picture above is the function where they announced the winner and launched the 2024 theatre season; it was very chill and actually quite a pleasant way to spend an evening (we weren't sure! theatre event! could be anything!). 

Contrast to the beach sky on Saturday afternoon - building up for another storm. Good to get the rain.

More rain, more beach

 Last week was the last full parliamentary sitting week of the year - lots of shouting and lots of busy as they tried to get everything through before Australia shuts down for six weeks. So we all exhaustedly went down to the beach on Friday (me, husband, cat) even though the weather forecast was dire. 

It did indeed rain and rain. A couple of storms, lots of drizzle, some windows of clear air. There had been a massive swell so the beach was covered in seaweed. On Sunday it had been swept out a bit so there were just those wonderfully attractive mats of barely-submerged weed in the surf line. Yucky ... and not at all helped by the local Facebook group posting all the pictures of washed up yellow-bellied sea snakes. Very unusual - they live well out to sea and are quite shy - but I don't want seaweed brushing up against my legs in the water. Aaaargh.

So we hit peak laziness on the weekend with nothing useful done at all. Books were read, food was eaten, wine was drunk (cracked open the wine box advent calendar! it was delicious, thank you in-laws, outstandingly good idea) ... I did a bit of painting but no sewing or anything difficult.

The beach and another blue dress

It was a bit rainy on the weekend but I still went to the beach and had some lovely swims. Friends came over for a swim and lunch, and I did a little bit of sewing. Nothing much to report really! 

My summer project is doing a bit of urban sketching of my little beach town, so I took some photos of suitable candidates - the old beach houses that are slowly being replaced with much fancier places. They're not super architecturally interesting but I am happy just to draw simple squares! In fact it's probably better if I stick to simple squares.

Here is another blue cotton dress I made - too short for work but perfect for the summer. Box pleats at the waistline this time, it is a reasonably heavy cotton so I didn't want to gather it.

Back on the splootchy ones

After the agony of portraits and the realism of urban sketching I have had a little sidetrack back to Jane Slivka of the big brushes and white impasto. It is a very enjoyable way to slap some paint around for an hour or two, although I'm not 100% convinced of the results. It's hard to do well, and I find myself adding the wrong sorts of detail and making it look odd. Anyway I meandered my way through a few of her videos.

Still life with peaches (possibly) and red wine and cheese. Yes cheese, not butter, it's not quite the colour I was going for. I think the flowers are hydrangeas.

These are definitely oranges with the vase. Of hydrangeas. So satisfying in some ways, and so marginal in others.

And an ocean scene (or possibly a lake, I don't think it matters). I quite like my fence but the house is a bit ramshackle, and the trees are odd.

Very basic top

This is something else I sewed at the beach - I am trying to use up all the material in the drawers even if it's not particularly obvious or easy to sew! This is a pretty but extremely lightweight polyester that was not going to co-operate for anything but the simplest of patterns... which is what I did. Seams across the shoulders, seams up the side, hems, thanks for coming.

It is nice enough, if a bit baggy. 

And it matches the orange cardy so that's something. It was a hot weekend and I did virtually nothing ... some house chores, some errands, some painting and some vague thinking about christmas. No actual doing or planning, just thinking.

More urban sketching

I have been having quite the foray into sketching - pen and wash - and enjoying the many many variations you can have on this theme ... from the ridiculously gorgeously detailed to the really abstract. I lean more towards the messy end, so I have sketched along with a few Youtube videos from Tobysketchloose .

He also has a lovely british accent that I enjoy listening to - I have no idea what sort it is Pam, and to be honest I do like almost every british accent I hear! There is a posh uni girl accent that I hear on Tiktok sometimes that is a bit grating, but that's about it, the rest are delightful.

I have learned to slow the lines right down, and give them a bit of texture, rather than dashing off something 'straight'. And it is better for the washes to blend and overlap, rather than colouring between the lines. I haven't quite got shading and hatching down yet, but Toby does a four stage process of big shapes, soft colour, bold colour, finishing lines which makes sense to me. 

The big challenge is not so much the drawing as looking at a real-life scene and then translating it into something sketchable. I have had a few goes but it's definitely a learned skill (that I have not yet learned).

The beach and some sewing

Whoof, it's Thursday already - this week has been busy as anything. I had a lovely extra Friday down the beach last week and it was tough to come home on Sunday - the weather was warm and the surf was great and I sewed a few things and it was altogether delightful! Except for the quest to get a sprinkler for our 'lawn' (mostly dust) - hose fittings are the devil's work. How can we have two taps and three different sets of hose fittings, none of which fit each other or the new sprinkler I bought? I bodgied something up eventually but it was quite frustrating.

As well as lovely swims I sewed a long skirt from some red scuba knit I'd had for ages. I think I originally intended it for a jacket but it is very thick and wouldn't have been easy to sew for anything complex like lapels. This is just a four-gored skirt, no pattern, with a stretchy waistband from the same fabric. It is so heavy that it drapes nicely and is swooshy to wear.

It is very red though, and perhaps a bit much overall, but I wore it anyway - this is the ensemble. At least you can see me coming.

The final project

Here is the final project that we did in the portrait course - I made the mistake of going to his website to look at all the other portraits that students did and most of them are amazing! Mine is not.

But, compared to the picture I painted at the start of this little frolic, it is much improved. The skin tones are OK, the shape is a bit weird but clearly a person, and there is some sort of character in the face. Once again, I have veered off towards old, sad and tired, this is the source photo! Poor thing.

I shall keep going with these, although they are an exercise in frustration. I find that it looks absolutely awful until it's 99% done, which is horrible, having to look at what you're doing and getting annoyed because it's not right. Then it comes together (slightly) at the end.

Urban sketching

I have been distracted from my portrait course by a side trek into the wonderful world of urban sketching. I had not heard of this before, but when we went to visit the closed historic house in Hobart, there were a group of people happily sitting in various parts of the grounds in the sun, sketching away. We asked if they were an art group and they said they were part of the worldwide urban sketching movement, where people gather in groups to sketch various urban environments. It's a big thing apparently. I hadn't heard of it before ... but boy was that a rabbit hole waiting for me to fall into. So many tutorials! So many suggested art supplies! 

So I found some random pictures of random picturesque streets (not in Canberra! we only have 1960s concrete and gum trees) and started on some pen and wash. It is very soothing to do after the tribulations of acrylic portraits. Especially if you embrace the 'wonky' aesthetic. These are the first ones I did and they are not very good but I am doing more and getting better.

Everyone suggests going 'straight in' with ink to give you more certainty of line ... I do not need certainty of line, I need walls that obey the laws of physics, so I have now started using pencil to sketch out the shapes and that has helped tremendously. 

Weekend at home

I thought it was time I spent a weekend in my actual house, so stayed home and pottered about. We were just thinking we would have to find some buddies and stop being hermits when a friend suggested going out for dinner, so we did, and it was lovely! We even went to a bar for a cocktail beforehand, like grown-ups. And home by normal bedtime, which is also wonderful, at our advanced ages. 

I went for the usual walk on Saturday - back past where I saw the snake and there was a group of people clearing out some sort of tree saplings from the reeds by the creek. There are at least ten people in that photo, if you look closely. I assume some sort of community regeneration group, and good on them, but absolutely not! You could barely see the tops of their hats, there could be anything lurking in the undergrowth, not for me.

I did a bit of tidying up on the weekend and dug back through a tub of random photos ... including the friends we had dinner with. That's me in the back seat, off on some frolic, nearly 27 years ago. Wow. 

The horrors of portraiture continue

I've done a few more of the little A5 style portraits - firstly a lovely woman from a photo on Unsplash. Again, I am doing her no favours, the photo is a beautiful twenty-something woman with absolutely glowing skin. Not this. 

I was having trouble finding decent photos that I thought I could manage to paint so ... what is the age old solution to the problem of not having an available artist's model? Why, you use yourself of course! The self-portrait, someone who is always there and unlikely to be critical of your work to quite the same degree. I took some selfies and tried it out.

Christ on a four-wheeler, whaddya call this? It kind of looks like me, but also not like me at all. Weirdly, it reminds me of my Aunty Lee, who I have never thought I particularly resembled. What is with my hair? I look sad, and tired, but in fairness I probably was.

This is not better. I deliberately tilted my head at an angle to get a more interesting shape to work with ... but I forgot about the angle for several features in my face, which means it is on a number of different planes. At once. This is not good. My right eye and mouth are looking up but my nose and left eye are going straight ahead. Picasso could get away with this nonsense, I cannot. At least my hair is nicer. Both paintings nail my massive eye bags, although the first one is more honest about my double chin. Oooof.

And even more beach....

 Two weekends in a row! I'm not sick of the drive yet, although two days is barely enough. Saturday was a bit windy and cold, so no swimming, but Sunday was beautiful and a very decent swell! I stayed in for ages, caught lots of waves.

Here is a photo of the public toilets / change rooms at the beach, they have some very cool murals. This was on Saturday when it was still a bit blowy.

Little portraits

The second lesson in portrait painting is doing a smaller half-sheet one - useful as a study for larger portraits apparently. For when people pay you many thousands of dollars to do their likeness. I am not holding my breath. So we copied a self-portrait by Anders Zorn - hence the colour palette - in small. Here is my version:

In the lessons we only did one but I thought I better get some more practice in and did another wee Zorn copy. I absolutely did her no favours, she has very strange cow eyes. But the skin tones are better and the mouth is OK.

And another Zorn, again I make my subjects much uglier than the originals. I do not think I could parlay this into a lucrative career. I am happy with the neck bow, that's about it.

Here are the originals! Comparisons are odious (to me) but I am definitely improving. Mine always look a bit sadder and more worried ... 

More glorious beach

I took Monday off and had a long weekend at the beach - it was magical. Swam in the mornings, sewed in the afternoons and watched trash TV with a glass of wine in the evenings. 

The water is still absolutely freezing but there was a decent swell so I managed fine with a wetsuit on. My overlocker is doing beautifully after its service so I sewed a few tshirts and things with stretch fabric. Nothing exciting at all, but quite satisfying.

More portraits

So I think Will Kemp is earning his money for these tutorials - very clear explanations and some really solid information on colour theory. Skin tones are hard, it's not just me! He had us starting off with a Zorn palette of colours - this is all done with yellow ochre, cadmium red, black and white. Very interesting - especially how muted you have to be for skin tones, they really don't have much saturation at all.

Then off we went with portrait exercise number one. It is manifestly not very good, but also light years better than the last lot, so I'll take the win.