In between teaching my classes and workshops, I have been doing a lot of studies with materials, painting images for the books I am working on and getting out sketching around Sydney most weeks. Here are a few of the sketches I have done in and around Sydney in the last couple of months. More to come.
This was done on Saturday with the Urban Sketchers. I have always love this building and wanted to explore a few different elements on the same page. I started on the right with the lovely arch- ways over the stairs, then moved to the pattern of the floor at the bottom of the page, then moved to the purple stained glass window (and realised I haven't used purple while sketching!) then moved outside to add one of the domes. I added the logo later.
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| Queen Victoria Building, Sydney, in Canson mixed media spiral. |
This was painted on a gorgeous day at the end of May. It was very difficult to believe Winter was about to arrive.
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| A gate at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. |
This was painted on the open day at Strickland House. It's a beautiful building in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney on stunning grounds overlooking the harbour. The grounds are open to the public for picnics and so on but it is more rare to be able to go inside.
I did this series of studies of the architectural details inside the house. I was testing out different water soluble inks, pens and pencils and the details were a nice subject.
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| Architectural details of Strickland House. |
I am teaching a workshop on watercolour and plein air sketching at Art Est at the beginning of July and it is always fun to try out materials for classes.
Lovely sketches - I particularly like the delicate architectural details of Strickland House
ReplyDeleteThank you! I have always loved detail :-)
DeleteHi, Jane. I love your purple stained glass window! Such beautiful colors. I hope to see you in the second semester of classes at Sketchbook Skool.
ReplyDeleteSusan
Susan I started sketching that window and then realised that the colours didn't exactly match with my previous sketches, but went ahead anyway. The building is full of gorgeous colours agains the white arches. Lovely place to go whether to shop or sketch...or drink tea?
DeleteHi Jane
ReplyDeleteSimply love your blog... just happened to come across it the other week when i happened to find liz Steel's.
Love your colour testing charts...which will save me countless hours doing it myself.
Have you tested any of the new Sennelier mixtures since a lot of them were refreshed in the last year?
Richard
www.richardjhunt.com
Thank you Richard. It's always good to know that all that work is helpful to others. I hope you have noticed that you can buy the whole set as an e-Book if you want them on your iPhone or iPad or Mac. Or a physical book, but they are more expensive.
DeleteI haven't tested many of the Sennelier colours. They are available in Sydney but not in many places. A friend bought a pan set a couple of years ago which I painted out to have a look but I didn't keep the sheet. When I have looked at them I have noticed a couple of odd pigments and multi pigment mixes - I try to choose single pigment colours as much as possible. If you are wondering about certain colours and how they might fit in with the charts, you could let me know the pigment numbers and I could suggest which colours they may match, or send a swatch of them painted out to janeblundellart@gmail.com, with pigment information.
I understand that Sennelier colours are one of the brands that are made with honey so they remain 'wet' when squeezed into pans or palettes. This can be a good thing, but can make trouble if painting plein air. M. Graham paints are also made with honey, but so much that they don't actually set so I don't use them even though the colours are lovely.
Happy painting :-)
Jane