South of the border

I spent a week in August with my sketching friends down in Melbourne. A few had other objectives that week other than sketching, but for me that was my main focus. After a very personal ordeal, I needed to get back on track and remember what it is like to sketch out and about again. There was also a touring exhibition at the gallery that I wanted to see as well, so that was another incentive to get out of town for a bit.

There’s not much I want to detail about the trip. I wasn’t aiming to achieve any artistic breakthrough this time round so I stuck with my regular mediums and just enjoyed the opportunity. So hope you like.

Vic Markets

First full day in Melbourne and it was pretty cold, even the local produce workers were complaining about the weather. Luckily there were a few benches, undercover, situated midway between the aisles that made it easy to set up for a few hours.

melbourne2014_vicmarkets2 LR — Watercolours and brush, followed by colour inks and dip pen

melbourne2014_vicmarkets3 LR — Watercolours and brush, followed by colour inks and dip pen

melbourne2014_vicmarkets4 LR — Colour ink and dip pen

The Old Treasury

We met up with a couple of local Urban Sketchers at The Old Treasury building. Although Melbourne is known for its buildings (old and new) I’m not a huge fan of drawing buildings as I don’t always feels they capture the “soul” of the place. It was a weekday so not much was happening outdoors, so I decided to draw the fountain as it had the most “life” in it.

A technique which I have started to employ (when I remember) is applying water to the paper first then throw on the colour. This is to get a cool blurry blended feel which adds dimension to any finished picture.

melbourne2014_govhouse1 LR — Watercolours and brush, followed by colour inks and dip pen

Koko Black

To warm ourselves up we went for coffee and chocolate. The interior had a nice rococo influenced style so sketched a bit of that. For some reason I folded by paper into three panels. I don’t know why, it was irrelevant in the end. I think it was because we had such small tables but lots of plates and cups I didn’t think I would have had the space to lay out an entire sheet.

melbourne2014_koko1 LR — Watercolours and brush, followed by Micron pigma pen.

melbourne2014_koko2 LR — Watercolours and brush, followed by Micron pigma pen.

The Rest of Melbourne

melbourne2014_southbank1 LR — Southbank – Watercolours and brush, followed by colour ink and dip pen.

melbourne2014_southbank2 LR — Southbank – Watercolours and brush, followed by colour ink and dip pen.

melbourne2014_fedsquare LR — Flinders St Station – artline pen and water brush pen

melbourne2014_fitzroy LR — Fitzroy – artline pen and water brush pen

melbourne2014_blockdress LR — The Block Arcade – wedding dress display. Drawn with Black calligraphic brush pen and watercolours.

melbourne2014_blocktailor LR — The Block Arcade – a tailor’s front window. Drawn with blue biro and watercolours.

Bushido exhibition

At the National Gallery of Victoria they had an exhibition of Bushido artifacts. Always never enough time, I focussed on the armour that was on display. And only had time for one katana. I did plan on doing an “eraser/graphite pencil” technique for this, but I couldn’t find my eraser so just attacked it with my 4B pencil. I ended up finding it in my pocket!!! but I had already gotten into it, so will save that technique for another time.

2 thoughts on “South of the border”

Andy Parkee says:

September 20, 2014 at 1:54 AM

Nice work Meegan. Lovely feel to the drawings and materials you used.

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Liam Parkee says:

September 20, 2014 at 8:15 AM

awesome work Meegan I love everything especially the Bushido exhibition and I like all the materials you used also the Fountain.

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