The Historic Houses Trust of NSW ran a “long” weekend event called Sydney Open. With the co-operation of several private and public buildings in the city centre they opened their doors to the general public for a look round. It was a drawing opportunity I could not miss, so went along Friday night with the Sydney Sketch Club and on my own Sunday. There was something like 32 buildings in all open on Sunday, but as I wanted to spend some time drawing I only visited four. I probably could have fit a fifth one in but I was exhausted and found myself standing very close to a bus stop home.
I wasn’t sure of what I was allowed to use in these buildings or how crowded it would be, so I opted for pencil and a very tiny travel watercolour set, very minimal. After all my architectural studies I tried to keep two things in mind for all these sketches: 1. spend some time looking before I start; and 2. make more of an effort to create spatial difference. For a closer look at my sketches please click on the image.
I was quite happy with the Level 7 paint sketch. The view was quite high so I wanted to capture the distance between myself and the scene below. I also wanted to show the distance between the trees and the park benches, and the cityscape sitting behind the cathedral but without it crowding the church spiers. It was all to do with subduing the colour palette in the park and the cityscape (distant images) and painting it more like a wash. The sun was setting very fast so the colours and lighting kept changing. But I think the intense blue colour links the whole scene together and helps create that space I was after.
My next stop was St James church, it was All Saints Day so there was a service on before we could head in. One great thing about being a sketcher is waiting in line is merely another opportunity to sketch.
The church was designed by Francis Greenway. He was an Englishman born into a family of architects and builders in the early 1800s. He was sent to Australia as a prisoner for forging documents but managed to by-pass his prison term and served as a civil engineer and architect. He is responsible for several government and public buildings in Sydney that are still in use today. He even appeared on our old $10 note. Nice to know some crooks get a second chance.
It was an unusual church interior for me. It didnt have the typical crucifix-shaped plan with shadowy corners and aisles that I’m use to, but was instead one really long room. For me the most striking thing was the gallery as shown above on the left page. Which I was told by a fellow sketch clubber that Greenway didn’t design (oops, sorry Frankie). On the right I attempted a semi-continuous line of the organ. It looked quite cool but then I added colour and made it too busy.
On Sunday I started the big day out at the Sydney Theatre Company. I was early and they were late opening up so I painted a few little thumbnails and sat patiently in the foyer till I could go exploring.
I went back to my normal habit of painting the background colour first then the linework (I used W&N watercolours and a Faber-Castell Pitt pen). But today once I finished the pen work I went over it again with colour, more particularly the darker tones. Once the paper had dried by adding the darker hues again, and with less water added to my brush, it gave the pictures more depth and a finish to them.
I was really happy with this fire station drawing. I’m not a big fan of drawing vehicles as I haven’t quite worked out their skeletal structure. But for me it was the challenge of spatial depth – particularly the yellow trucks parked further in from the red truck. Again it was down to all the things I mentioned earlier, but I also think having a small colour pallete unified the picture. I only had one blue and one yellow in my palette so mixing it with the other colours created an overall harmony through the picture.
All vistors had to check their bags outside before entering so I just took a pencil, my sharpener and book with me. Here was a challenge of capturing a scene that was so intricate with architectural detail but still had a sense of space and airiness. So again I tried to manage the attention to detail and shading so that it helped achieved that feeling.
All in all today was very satisfying. Sadly, this event only occurs once every two years. But I did find out some venues are open to the public most days. Oh and I love this new sketchbook (Hahnemühle Sketch Book). I normally use looseleaf paper, primarily because sketchbooks don’t like colour inks and dip pens. But a larger format sketchbook was great. It may be a little cumbersome for some, but for those of you who like sketchbooks do try one at a larger size every now and then. There’s more elbow space and room to explore with a big size.
Cheers,
Meegan