1st Urban Sketchers Australia meet up

It was a much needed day out of sketching for me, and although Sydney was thrown into 40˚ heat leading up to our first Urban Sketchers Australia meet up, the gods were fairly decent towards us on the day. The gardens are a lovely refuge in the inner city and even though there was a constant stream of visitors we could still spread out and enjoy ourselves. It’s also one of the few public places that provides free reading material and cabana beach chairs!

I brought along my Derwent inktense pencils, a couple of W&N colour inks and my W&N watercolours, and I was also drawing in a large format Hahnemühle* sketchbook. I always apply my colour washes first and then my linework, and sometimes I look at my finished colour washes and think “does it need linework?” So I attempted one with and one without.

I guess they both work well, but it is nice to know I can create pictures without feeling the need to add linework. I created these pictures by first using my Inktense pencils not just to establish structure but for colour, then instead of using water to spread the colour, I used my watercolour set instead. So in the end I think it retains enough linework but in a more subtle way.

It was nice to start to my first USK Australia meetup by breaking some new ground and I look forward to the next.

*I bought this sketchbook at the last minute – I wanted a large format sketchbook to take into buildings I thought might have an issue with large artboards. It’s great for pencils and concentrated watercolour application, but having more watery washes and colour inks it just seeped right into the paper.  I didn’t mind the subdued watercolour result (you can see it more clearly in the sky in the third picture), but I had to apply colour more liberally if I wanted it to stand out.