American Sketchbook – Part 2: Illuxcon, New York and Colorado

General notes: This is Part 2 of my sketchbook – Part 1 is here, and Part 3 is here. These are sketches with (mostly) Pitt Artist Pens in a little Moleskine sketchbook. You can see larger versions by clicking on the pictures, which will take you through to their Flickr page.

Here we begin with me hiring a bicycle in Toronto in order to get to the Merrill collection. I did not fall off. From Toronto, Jannie and I drove to Altoona, Pennsylvania for Illuxcon 5, which does not have the most up-to-date website but was jewel of a convention for fantasy illustrators, and a brave new world for me.

 

American Sketchbook – Part 1: World Fantasy and Toronto

General notes: These are sketches with (mostly) Pitt Artist Pens in a little Moleskine sketchbook. You can see larger versions by clicking on the pictures, which will take you through to their Flickr page. Update: Part 2 and Part 3 are now up.

Summary: I had an amazing time! It was a very busy holiday, bouncing from Brisbane to New York state, Toronto, Pennsylvania, New Jersey/New York, Colorado and California. Either I was sitting and eating a lot or walking and eating a lot. World Fantasy was my first overseas convention, Illuxcon my first art convention, everyone was wonderful, I met people I hadn’t really thought of as people, just names on consistently amazing books and art. My plans to eat my way across a continent, conduct hands-on research of how an art show operates, and visit the locations of What’s Up Doc were also successful.

 

Catching up on sketchbook uploads!

It’s been a little while, I know! But here is the second half of my last sketchbook, for posterity etc. As usual, clicking on a picture will take you through to Flickr where you can see larger versions.

First, shoppers in Mount Ommaney shopping centre last October – note the durable popularity of maxidresses. It was a hot October, like this one.

 

Card Games

Pen and ink, with just a touch of watercolour.

This is my entry in Anna Denise’s Moleskine for the portrait party exchange (mxportraits1.blogspot.com/). This is part of the international moleskine exchange (www.flickr.com/groups/moly_x).

 

Conflux 7 Sketches

Over the first weekend in October I went to Conflux 7 in Canberra. I had a wonderful time, talked to nearly everyone, went to book launches, drank coffee, was given a beautiful bouquet of flowers, banqueted like it was 1929 (I have no pictures of that, but there are quite a few around the traps), spent time with some of my favourite artists, writers and people, then spent several days afterwards simply recovering.

If I do a full con report, you won’t get any report at all, so here are the sketches (the cartoon ones are the sketches I draw and upload on Twitter and Facebook as I go). Clicking on pictures should give you an option to see them at a larger scale.

 

Ekka 2011

On Wednesday, People’s Day, I went to the Ekka armed with my sketchbook and the intention of eating all the wonderful/awful things. It was a very satisfactory day.

Note: You can see larger versions of these sketches by clicking on them to go through to their Flickr page.

Here are people at the train station, and one of my favourite events to sketch: the woodchop. It is a very fast competition, which turns sketching into a race. This year there was a bonus Lord Mayor.

I wandered through the cattle pavilions making myself homesick, but I can rarely find anywhere good to sketch there – they are very popular, and because the exhibitors camp out there as well, it feels like walking into someone’s living room and drawing them. If people kept cows in their living rooms.

I like sitting in the stands watching the working dog trials as well, although the dogs are so tiny and far away. The crowd gets incredibly tense – and on the right, below, are some of the beautiful adoption greyhounds. Every year I almost convince myself I need a dog.

But who could choose just one? The giant Schnauzers and the Belgian shepherds were the prettiest to draw, but that’s a tough call. In the blacksmith’s and farrier’s tent it smelled like burning hair, and was full of enormous hairy cart horses, and lounging men wearing leather aprons.

Ducks!

Then I met up with K and C and rode the CarnEvil ride, and walked back into the valley to sketch with Shayna at Kerbside, and had a very satisfactory view of the fireworks from the footpath.

 

Moleskine exchange: Portrait of Robin

This is my latest portrait for the Portrait Party Moleskine Exchange: http://mxportraits1.blogspot.com . Robin, on the right, is the owner of this sketchbook. The little birds came about because of the paint spots Jan (previous artist) left for me to work with. The dress is new.

In other news, NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow. I am looking forward to it, and trying not to resent it a little because I was just getting back into the short story swing. I submitted 2 tonight: M (epistolary Australian vampire/thumbelina fable, although one of the very kind people who critiqued it at the last minute said it reminded her more of the Gingerbread Man) for an anthology, and that Australian Scarlet Letter/Cinderella/St George story E&tF which I hope finds a home, poor thing.

 

How to sketch a zombie apocalypse

The first thing to note is that the living dead move more quickly than one might expect. Use equipment that is light, quick and accessible – I found my usual small sketchbook and art pens (markers) ideal. They also attract less attention than a camera.

Some zombies use rudimentary forms of transport – skateboards, rollerblades and rollerskates all appeared. Those in wheelchairs, however, seemed to find it easier to negotiate the crowds at the beginning of the walk. Also, several thousand zombies walking from the top of Albert Street to Fortitude Valley delay traffic.

It therefore follows that the best sketching opportunities will be when the zombies are generally milling around, engaged in anointing each other with blood and flour.

There are several varieties of zombie: the zombie bride, the Na’vi and the zombie Wallys/Waldos were particularly in evidence. There were also spidermen, nurse, hockey, storm trooper and steampunk zombies, goth zombies, baby zombies, Disney zombies and endless permutations and cross-pollinations. There is only one ‘wrong’ sort of zombie, and that is the sexy zombie.

Some are quite laid-back.

Zombies do try to organise, but are thwarted by their narrow perspective. Cries of “What do we want? Brains! When do we want it? Brains!” disturbed a wedding (the guests came out to take photos) but did not establish a timeline within which their demands were to be met.

The zombies will eventually be on the move, down streets lined with brave photographers, astonished shoppers and nervous shopkeepers. This will test documentary sketching skills. I would stop, sketch, and run on to avoid falling too far behind. The reactions are as much fun to watch as the horde:

There are more sketching opportunities at the end, when zombies sit on stairs and rooftops to relax, and climb trees, and go for burgers. If they have grown used to an artist, they may temporarily adopt it into their horde at this time.

 

Worldcon – Aussiecon4

I don’t travel with a camera and I don’t write detailed convention reports. There are many excellent detailed reports out there, and I never do anything with the photos and always get the names wrong (sorry, Chris!). So here, instead, is my sketchbook. It is a very small sketchbook (there is a photo at the end for scale) but you can see the pictures larger by clicking on them to go to their Flickr page.

I’m back from Worldcon in Melbourne! I took two weeks off, which turned out well as I spent much of the first weekend at work, and most of the first Monday cutting matt boards, mounting pictures, matting them in cellophane and jettisoning non-essential plans. On the Tuesday, I flew to Melbourne and walked across the city centre to a hostel in an old convent. Its chief recommendation is its cat, Brother Francis (see below) and a common room with fireplace.

It rained and was very cold.  On Wednesday, I went into an unidentified doorway and found myself at the launch of the Melbourne Fringe Festival – Lord Mayors and Members of Parliament, free ale, comic hula-hoopers and Barry Morgan from Morgan’s World of Organs.

I also found a cafe with a wonderful mushroom, lentil and cinnamon dahl, medicinal teas (the owner believing the problems of the world can be relieved by the proper application of herbs) and sprouts growing in a yellow birdcage. That afternoon, some very kind Worldcon volunteers smuggled me in the back door under the noses of UN security so I could ask silly questions about hooks and pegboard. On Thursday the convention began. I spent most of the morning setting up in the art show, then emerged into the rest of the convention and was quickly overstimulated – So Many People To Talk To!!! I calmed down a bit by Friday, when I realised that getting to know everyone at the convention was a lost cause. Below, in the propeller beanie, is John Hertz, DUFF winner. On Friday I was able to see the 15 minute animation of Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing.

It was my first art show. I spent a lot of time going back to check it out and talk with artists there. I also went to several bid parties in the evening and acquired the stickers on the right, below. I went to various food courts and restaurants and ate far too much with many old and new friends.

I did not get to nearly as many panels as I highlighted in the program, but I did go to most of the artist panels – Richard Harland led a panel with David Cornish and Shaun Tan which was a lot of fun because Richard was so fascinated by the process of illustration and David and Shaun kept commenting on each others’ techniques and approaches. I also went to a reading by Catherynne M Valente which was an unexpected delight (I think I was meant to be elsewhere. Also, for some reason I have written Aussiecon3 on that page when it should be Aussiecon4). Richard Harland and Jack Dann were meant to read one after the other, but instead did the voices in each others’ readings (and encouraged audience participation in angry mob scenes). There should be more theatrical readings at conventions! The Ditmars were awarded Friday night – congratulations to everyone I didn’t see, or mistook for someone else!

Here are some masquerade costumes, including a rather affectionate Cthulu. That evening, some brave souls and I ventured in to the Filking room and had a wonderful time – harps and ukeleles, guitars and fiddles, silly songs and serious ones.

The following day I contributed to public acts of harping (by carrying a harp and egging Ann on). There was more coffee and food, and a rehearsed reading of Norma K Hemmings 1950s play The Matriarchy of Renok (containing the immortal lines “Inferior male technology!” “Inferior female repairs!”). The Hugo awards were that night, and although it was all stately and formal (mostly) it was exciting to be there! More filking that night.

I spent most of Monday at the art show, doing paper work (I sold 10 of 13 pictures and won Most Humourous!), and had an extensively bar/restaurant oriented evening before collecting my bags and moving back to the hostel. On Tuesday, I found the Wunderkammer, caught up with (con-going) friends for breakfast and lunch, bought art books and comics and discovered we now had a government.

I sketched in the cold in Federation Square. There is a big screen in the square and sometimes they show the news, and sometimes Meerkat Manor and sometimes they turn the camera on the crowd. It is fun to watch peoples’ reactions (also, it enables very small selfportraits). I stopped at St Pauls Cathedral to listen to evensong, and then it was a long cold walk across town back to the hostel. I stopped in a Greek bakery and a mall on the way back.

I spent most of the non-con days walking far too far and eating far too much, and the evenings reading ghost stories in the hostel common room, so a fairly ideal holiday. Below left is another hostel guest taking some time with Brother Francis. On Wednesday I walked back to the galleries and saw the Tim Burton exhibition (details below) at ACMI, and the Masterpieces of Europe exhibition at the NGV.

As usual, I sketched people looking at paintings instead of the paintings. Then I walked back to the hostel, gathered my bags and trekked back to Southern Cross Station, took a bus to the airport and flew home.

Here are some sketchbooks with a yardstick and a good reference book for reference. I put different stickers on the front to tell them apart – the current book (open) is “No Door to Door Traders” which seems to puzzle people.

In conclusion, I had a wonderful time, miss everyone already, have a handful of anthologies to write submissions for and have lengthened the list of people whose work I hope to illustrate one day.

 

End of the Sketchbook

I have finished uploading my latest sketchbook – the Flickr folder is here (links to all the sketchbooks are under the “Sketchbook” tab at the top of this page). And here is some on-the-ground, up-to-the minute fashion reporting from the foodcourt at Indooroopilly Shoppingtown. For a sense of scale, the sketch of the girl in red trousers is 3.2cm tall (I think that’s an inch and a quarter?).

The colours of the cloud at top left are fairly accurate, but out of context it looks bruised. The girl below it (pink background) wears her short hair rather bouffant, with an enormous sequined bow.

Another early-morning coffee drinker:

Sometimes I go back and find people I now know as regulars. The man with the green background on the third row, for examples, nods and smiles every morning, but we have not yet spoken.

It is midwinter in Brisbane, as you probably can’t tell from the variety of clothing-lengths below. This is an excerpt from a queue at the Gallery of Modern Art (I think it was for the final show of the Ron Mueck exhibition). I’m happiest with the couple in the middle.

It seems to be a page for happy couples, as witness the pair left of centre strolling into the fold:

In other news, my printer/scanner is expiring, so I will pass it on to someone who doesn’t need to print blue, and buy another one. I’m tempted to get a portable scanner, just to have for Worldcon, but wouldn’t have room for it, besides which I spent that money on clothes yesterday (to replace work trousers and a skirt I’ve had for at least four years each, so it’s justifiable, but I still feel that I’ve misplaced my priorities). I spent the afternoon before and the evening after church in the office, and am now properly on holidays. Tomorrow, I matt my pictures. And finish the comic. And pack.