Christmas afternoon: down by the river

We put our folding chairs in a dense patch of tree shade and looked out across the river.
There was hot water in a thermos for tea or coffee, spectacular home made nut and cacao and coconut confections, leftover homemade ravioli, a bag of chips and some cherry tomatoes. In other bags we had sketching supplies.

At first one of those delicious afternoon-shady-spot-hot-day-well-fed lethargies settled around us and I thought a nap might be a better choice than dragging out the sketching gear. But, pleasant as it was to sit there in a dreamy daze, the itch to make marks was strong.

I am between sketchbooks at the moment, still waiting for my new one to arrive. I had a small watercolour pad with me and decided to play with watercolours. No pen today.

At first I used the watercolours as I usually do - just as a way to add colour, mixing the colours I want and slopping them down.

Then I tried working very wet, letting the colours run around and visit each other:

Finally, in the third sketch, I put down washes, let them dry and layered other colours over them:

All in all, a lovely Christmas afternoon!

Chancing it Again: micro travel #2

Sunshine, a pleasant breeze, blue skies - a perfect day for micro-travelling.The plan for today involved dice (again) and cards ( white cards the size of business cards). I could have used bits of paper, but fanning out a hand of cards has a je ne sais quoi that wrinkly bits of paper absolutely lack.
So what do you do with the cards apart from fanning them out in a je ne sais quoi kind of way?
Take a look.

Each card has, written on it, precise instructions of something to observe, notice, and draw. Here is the whole spread:

With dice, cards, sketchbook, the usual drawing kit and my $2 K-Mart folding stool, I left my car in South Fremantle and walked to the nearest bus stop to wait for the CAT bus. This is a free bus that does a loop around Fremantle. There's a bus every 10 minutes. While I waited I rolled a die. Five dots looked up at me. According to my plan...

that meant I had to get off the bus after five stops then pick a card at random and follow the instructions.

What I hadn't counted on was zoning out on the bus and losing track of how many stops we passed. I think I may have gone one stop too many. Never mind. Micro travel is not an exacting discipline, but a cheerful embrace of the unexpected as well as the ordinary.

There were a lot of Spanish and Italian passengers on the bus. When they got off they left clouds of Ciao's and Hasta la vistas and Muchas Graciases in their wake, the way some people leave a fragrance or little bubbles of happiness. At my stop, once I had added my own farewells and thanks to the atmosphere, I stepped onto a sun drenched pavement and took out my pack of cards. Fanning them out ( with that certain je ne sais quoi ) I selected one and turned it over. It said:

Notice Foliage

There was a big Plane tree just around the corner casting deep shade onto the footpath. I unfolded my stool, parked it against an old limestone wall and looked across the street at a group of small trees. Different coloured foliage, different shaped leaves, different textures. Two of the trees had red flowers. Behind them another large Plane tree and in the distance a Norfolk Island Pine. As I drew, a group of children inched their way towards me. When I looked down at my sketchbook they took tiny steps closer. When I looked up, they stopped. They didn't speak to me at all until I asked where they were from. Then in a chorus they all said 'KL'. They watched me silently until a parent hustled them away. I drew and coloured the foliage 

and by the time I'd finished I was ready for a coffee. 

Blink Cafe is a tiny hole in the wall. I sat on a wooden cube at a table on the pavement  sipping a long black out of a glass. Justin, the barista, brought me a flourless sweet thing on a really pretty plate.  As I drew it a young woman glided in wearing an academic gown. She'd escaped from her graduation ceremony with her brother and wanted him to take photos of her in the cafe, since that's where she'd spent so much of her time as a student. 

Back to the bus stop, back on the bus, a quick stop at the station for the loo and a roll of the die that told me to get off after six stops. La la la... bus ride through Freo.  The card I picked said:

Draw your fellow humans.

but when we reached the sixth stop there were no humans to be found. Just blank walled buildings and blue blue sky. Not even a bit of foliage!! So I cheated and went one more stop to a place where there are cafes and shops and plethoras of people. There, at Ootong and Lincoln, I occupied a large table, ate a salad of sweet potato, green beans and a whole glorious gallimaufry of  salady things and drew some of the humans around me. 

How quickly the time passed, but how utterly delightful to explore in this way. Here's the complete page from today's micro-travels:

If you are in the area and feel like joining me next week, let me know. If you are far away you might like to try something like this in your own neck of the woods. Keep me posted, I'd love to hear about your adventures!

Marking Time: 3 Calendars

Around this time each year I gather together drawings or photos and make them into calendars on Redbubble to give out as Christmas gifts.

This year, I have made three calendars. Here are the links to Redbubble and the cover images to give you an idea of what's inside!!

1. A collection of drawings made in cafes, mostly featuring cups of tea or coffee, sometimes with cake.

2. Drawings of landscapes, ocean views and scenes along the rivers in Perth.
It's called Land, River, Sea

3. Assorted sketches - some cafe drawings, some land and riverscapes, some random objects.
It's simply called Sketchbook Drawings

Take a Chance: The Art of Micro Travel

I had my sketchbook under my arm and my pen and watercolours in my bag. There was a folding stool slung over one shoulder and, smallest but most important, in a pocket of my bag there rested the two items that would determine my fate for the morning: a die and a key card.
The die is a normal die but the key card is not like a normal hotel-style key card. It is a piece of card with the key on it. It looks like this:

I drove to South Fremantle, parked my car and got out on South Street. This was my chosen theatre of travel. South Street from King William Street to just past Jenkins St. Only a couple of blocks.

At the corner of South and King William I held my sketchbook flat and rolled the die. 6.
Reading my key, I saw that a 6 means I have to draw what's at the back of me. So I put down the stool facing the way I'd come. And drew a couple of containers of plants that were in my line of sight - a Jade plant (I think) and something with pink flowers.

When that was done, I walked on. The Roasting Warehouse is on the next corner and I felt that a second breakfast would be a good idea. The Roasting Warehouse has terrific tables - large enough to spread out drawing stuff and not get in anyone's way. I rolled the die - 2. Draw what you see when you look down. Aha! That was my plate of poached eggs on toast and a juice of various red and orange vegetables. So I drew them.

Stop number three was at the end of that block. I rolled a 4: Look right and draw what you see. I oriented my stool to face the right hand side of the street where a clump of sunflowers half hid a parked bicycle.

At the fourth stop I rolled a 2 again: look down. This time when I lowered my eyes I saw dead leaves and Bougainvillea bracts littering the footpath.

At the fifth and final stop I rolled another 4: Look right. To my right this time there were three conjoined shops. What struck me about them was their doors - same style but different colours.

By then I'd filled a double page spread and the heavy humid air had erupted into thunder and lightning. Time to call it a day.

Adding elements of chance to a sketch walk, randomising the experience, is a way of forcing myself to look at things I might otherwise ignore. It adds excitement and transforms an outing into a real adventure. No fancy gear needed - no expense - no responsibility to make choices about what to draw.

I highly recommend taking a chance with micro travel. I'd love to see where it takes you and what you create along the way!!

Of Bulls and Bluebirds

The vision:
Sitting on a grassy verge breathing in fresh country air scented with eucalyptus and wildflowers, sketching.
Then driving on to the next inspiring scene or object and repeating the above, possibly substituting a convenient rock or ant free log for the grassy verge.
Returning home with a sketchbook full of drawings telling the story of the day.

The plan:
To drive to Dwellingup, sketching as described in the vision.

The unexpected:
Flies in enormous sticky clouds.

The way it all turned out:
I began in true documentary mode, writing down things that we said, things that I thought.
'Roe Highway exit 11kms. Really?'
'A burnt out car - Wow!'
'Dwellingup used to be such a sweet little place.'
'The sky is like a blue bowl upended over the world with little bits of beaten egg-whites still stuck to the insides.'

We drew. We stopped on the side of the road and drew what was in front of us. I drew a paddock leading up to a hill full of trees and the deeply fissured bark of a Jarrah tree. A butterfly landed beside me - I drew it too. Cicadas whirred, dogs barked somewhere in the distance and trucks rolled on down the highway. There were flies, but not in vast numbers. The day was young.
Ingrid sat further down along a side road sketching a windmill. That led to a discussion - should they be called wind mills when there is no mill attached. Should it not be a wind-water-pump, since pumping water is what it does?

We kept notes of the more quirky and interesting place names: Cardup, Dwellingup, Nanjedal, Uungula, Medulla Creek, Coogly Road.

The second stop was at a place in Serpentine, called Stockman's Rest, a cafe/ restaurant run by a Dutch couple called Mr and Mrs Stokman. The menu had lots of Dutch specialties, including rollmops, which I have not eaten for many many years.
I drew my glass of tea perched on a white paper doily. Ingrid drew one of the clay things that you build fires in. A chimera stove. There was a tractor museum in Serpentine and we thought of going in and drawing tractors but, although all the signs said it was open, there was a hefty chain across the door which said otherwise.

Ingrid was keen to draw cows, but for a long time there were none to be seen. Then at last we spotted a herd in a paddock fairly close to the road. We piled out of the car all eager to sketch them, but seriously, you would not believe the flies! Impossible to stand there with no free hands to wave them away. They were little bush flies that aimed straight for the moist surfaces of eyes and mouths and nostrils.  So goodbye cows
.
At last we arrived in Dwellingup and found our way to the Bluebird Cafe, a most delightful spot with big tables for spreading out sketching gear and interesting things to look at. There was good tea too.

Ingrid drew the signposts on the road outside and I focused on a curly little shelf that had an odd array of things on it - tomato sauce, a shopping bag, a roll of kitchen paper.

On the way home there were bulls in a paddock. Of course we stopped. It was a bit cooler and breezier and the files weren't so bad (though still very noticeable). The bulls cavorted and danced, swung their heads and their hips, swooshing long strands of spit as they did so. Happy bulls! Sweet, frolicking bulls. Bulls with mellow bellows. We drew them with our sketchbooks propped on fence posts. Mine don't look like bulls very much, their faces are more doggy that bully! But such a delight to be in their company and to spend that time getting to know them.

So, that was our drawing expedition to Dwellingup.
Next vision:
A game of chance with pen and watercolours (and possibly other gear). Stay tuned!

Road Trip

One of my absolutely blissiest things  is setting off on a solo road trip and on Friday I did it. I hired a car so I wouldn't be anxious about bits falling off mine. I packed drawing stuff, audio books and all the usual sleeping, eating, sartorial and abluttionary supplies. I drove north, allowing seven hours for a five hour drive - not as much as I'd like but there was a hiccup at the hire car place and I got away late. The plan: drive, stopping whenever I saw things I'd like to sketch. Sketch, get in the car and keep driving. You'd think it would be easy, but it wasn't.

It seemed that whenever the scenery looked great, there would be a car right on my tail and that, combined with the highway's narrow and often steeply graded shoulders makes it tricky to stop where you want.

Still, there were plenty of opportunities. I made my first sketch from the lookout at Guilderton where the Moore River almost reaches the Indian Ocean. Only a narrow sand bar separates them.

I stopped again for coffee at a cafe in Jurien Bay. It seemed silly, somehow, to draw my coffee when I could do that anywhere, so I sketched the people as they huddled in groups, sat at tables or waited for take aways.

Further along, I stopped to draw a field of wheat:

And a little further, one of the many white sand dunes dotted with green vegetation:

On the drive home I discovered a narrow sandy road that took me to the edge of some low, sandstone cliffs with a fantastic view of rocks and ocean. I sketched it in pen and did the colouring from memory at home. On the same page there is a little drawing of the view from  the jetty at Jurien Bay.

I'd love to get a group of friends together some time and do a road trip sketch crawl, each of us documenting the journey in our own way. A few days...a week....longer.....

The Same River Twice

I live just a hop skip and a jump from the Canning River. It flows on under the Canning Bridge, meets the Swan River and the two of them, having become inseparable, continue as one all the way to Fremantle and the Indian Ocean.

It is a fine thing to sit by a river, watching it flow; to be firmly planted on one shore, daydreaming about the other. The river flows. Time passes. Thoughts sparkle and play in the dancing light, then, as if inexorably drawn by the currents, flow, drift, float on by.

The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, saw the world as ever-changing, always in a state of flux. It was he who said you can't step into the same river twice - or, more correctly:

'Everything changes and nothing remains still...and...you cannot step twice into the same stream.'

Each time I sit beside it - in a riverside cafe, on the end of a jetty, on a grassy or rocky bank - the river is new.  It is a different river, always changing, never still. Strange, then, that here,  making the coloured marks that paint a picture on my page, a kind of stillness settles and in it, there is an echo, a memory, a reflection of eternity.

I am reminded of William Blake's poem, 'Auguries of Innocence':

'To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.'

Some river sketches, a small collection - same river, different river.

Same difference.