Sketchabout 4 - Liz's Sketches

This week I tried to get to the garden early for some focussed sketching before the excitement of the sketchabout – but the weather and the Con open day had other plans for me...

Just before I reached the garden it started raining and blowing a gale – but of course I still sketched with the threat of rain - this is a wonderful art installation made of building fragments. I have wanted to sketch since I discovered it but it has either been rainy or way too hot to sketch in the sun...so at least I have the first sketch now...but of course I want to go back some day!

Next- a lovely surprise in the Vista Pavilion - an open day at the nearby Conservatorium of Music with some events in the garden - so I had to sketch it! A Clarinet Quartet was playing a very mixed medley which finished with Gershwin’s Lady Be good – so no guess what lyrics were rattling in my head for the rest of the day!

Another great group today and thankfully it did not rain! About 25 people - really getting to know some of the regulars and lovely meeting new people each week!!

I started by sketching the Ikebana scuplture which was a little challenging - had a lovely chat to fellow sketchers in the middle.

Then time to actually draw a detail of some leaves and an another Moreton Bay Fig – I love these trees. More chatting to new sketchabout attendees - it is such a lovely social event. I do find it sometimes hard to sketch and talk at the same time but have worked out that I can manage to get them to a 80% stage while chatting away...but I leave that last 20% to complete in calmness at home. Therefore, what others see at the end of the day is sometimes a lot different from the final version.

I went in search of Sadami and found her sketching musicans back up at the Vista Pavilion and then I joined in sketching- just as a jazz performance started- it was WONDERFUL!!!


Another great day- see you all next time!!!

Kira's sketches

Drawn by Kira Sepulveda, age 14 years.


A very enjoyable relaxing afternoon, good time out for sketching, which I love.

Alissa's sketches from Sketchabout 1

Blue Sky, sunshine and 40 enthusiastic sketchers in the Gardens! It was an inspriational site !
After chatting with a few of the sketchers , I settled under the shade of Moreton Bay fig ...



I am always fascintated by the fact that these fruit all seems to have only one or two bites out of them and then tossed away - Do the bats get full quickly or did this fruit taste bad and they move onto another ????

and after we all met up to compare sketchbooks and our experiences a few of us went to Afternoon Tea at the Restaurant

An afternoon in the gardens

On Saturday I was in the gardens from 1pm...only 2 weeks till I will be there as part of the sketchabout - I can't wait. Anyway, I had a productive afternoon - here are the sketches I did in my sketchbook.

First stop was my favourite tree. There are lots of Moreton Bay figs (or similar) in the Royal Botanic Gardens but this one is the best!!! Love all those aerial roots.

I was feeling a little exhausted (as I had been walking around town and sketching in the morning as well!) so I went to lie down on the grass in the shade for a bit. It was such a beautiful afternoon and there were lots of groups of people sun baking or resting in the shade so I was in good company. My rest didn't last long as I felt the urge to sketch. This Greek monument I have sketched before and was recently label a coffee plunger here by a Dutch flickr friend. I have always drawn this looking towards the Harbour Bridge but today sitting under the shade of a frangipani tree on a very warm summers day I was facing the opposite direction. No disrespect intended to the monument... I do really love it as a fine piece of Corinthian Greek architecture!

After the coffee plunger analogy surely it was time for a coffee - so I drew a grouping of palm trees while sipping a takeaway skinny latte. It is quite fun to be drawing more trees and landscaping...something that as an architect I used to really be unsure about doing...

And finally - I caught up with Alissa at 4.30 and we did a sketch in the herb garden.

Moreton Bay Fig and a wedding

I went to the Gardens afterwork today. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to draw, but when I saw the massive hanging branches of this Moreton Bay Fig on the Bennelong Lawn I knew this was it. If you look carefully, there are two people sitting at the base of the tree.

And then... a wedding party arrived for a quick photo, before moving on. The photographer spent a few minutes lining them up for the photo, so I quickly scribbled down their shapes onto paper, adding the colour afterwards.