American Sketchbook – Part 3: San Francisco and LA

General notes: This is Part 2 of my sketchbook – Part 1 is here, and Part 2 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.

So then I flew to San Francisco, where Katharine and Matt collected me at the baggage carousel, having recognised me from behind based on my hair in my sketches of myself.

We wandered the streets, ate in Chinatown and the next morning went to Alcatraz, where we made up facts and discussed possible adventures which could take place on the island. Escape from Alcatraz with Evil Clowns?

 

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.

 

Brisbane Fashion (sketchbook update)

This is the tail end of the Brisbane floods sketchbook (the full set is here).

By February life was already returning to normal, superficially, and girls were strolling through Queen Street Mall in maxi-dresses:

And not so maxi-dresses:

Session musicians were playing at the Irish Club:

Boys were shamefacedly carrying bright pink shopping bags:

I kept trying to draw beer, beards and bodhrans:

There was jewelry to buy at twilight markets:

There were free plants to acquire in King George Square, and vintage fashion to buy at Mount Gravatt showgrounds:

And coffee to drink in cafes attached to bookstores which are now gone:

 

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.

 

What I did on my holidays – part 2

This is the second half of my Sydney sketches. The first half is here: What I did on my holidays – part 1

On Sunday morning, I sat outside a cafe near my hostel and drew a terrace house (turned hostel) across the street. The cafe owners asked me to do a mural based on it, but I explained I was leaving soon.

I walked to the city, and updated Facebook and Twitter with this sketch – “The motto of all the mongoose family is ‘Run and find out!’”

I went to St Andrews Cathedral and St Phillips on Sunday. I love old hymns, but can’t get used to organ music – it sounds to me like a remixed traffic jam. I went to the Zine Fest at the MCA and drew hats.

I also went to a Zia Pina in the Rocks for calzone. I love Zia Pina because they serve lemonade in glass beer mugs. I am easily pleased.

The next day, I drew outside the cafe which had asked me to do a mural. They gave me a permanent marker and I drew on their wall. We made arrangements involving coffee and pain au chocolat.

Oh, look! An actual photo of me:

After that, I walked to Newtown by degrees. Here is one of them:

It was sunny and windy. I walked and ate cinnamon waffles and shopped and tried on buttons for size (and was not subtle enough, as the button lady suggested that another variety would be a better size for a Coraline costume). I met Guan and Karen and Ben and Astrid again at Berkelouw Books in Newtown, then walked back across town to Berkelouws on Oxford Street, where I sat for a while to recover. Like this:

Then I went back to my dorm at the hostel for the last time, and gave possibly misguided advice to the Germans who wanted to know about the happening suburbs in Brisbane.

On the last day I went into town again, and was chased by a sweeper in Hyde Park.

I stared at books and bought a pair of shoes (that’s two for the year! Another resolution to cross off the list!) and felt very decadent asking to have them delivered to my house. They have not yet arrived.

And that was the end of Sydney.

 

What I did on my holidays – Part 1

I will now relate the events of my trip to Sydney, with accompanying sketches and the quick cartoons which served as my Twitter and Facebook updates. You can see the sketchbook images at a larger size by clicking on a picture. That will take you to its Flickr page which will give you an option to see it at a larger size. The cartoons are in odd lights because I took them (usually on location) with my phone.

First, to start the sketchbook, are some drawings from the “Art in the 21st Century” exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. It was an exhibit full of fun – slides from the top floor to the bottom, rooms full of balloons and finches, tables of Lego spires, walls of wishes. At their best, modern art galleries are like carnivals, with hundreds of people looking and making and wondering and having fun.

I went down to Sydney for a week, flying mid-week and staying in a backpacker hostel in Kings Cross because that way I can spend more money on coffee and avoid the crushing loneliness that inhabits hotel rooms.

Here I am waiting for the train to the airport in Brisbane. You may recognise the station from such movies as Daybreakers.

Mostly I walked and drank coffee. Sometimes I sat in bookstores and recovered from walking, and drank coffee. The weather was beautiful. I drew birds, and was not attacked by seagulls.

I went on my usual personal literary tour – the gardens and Pitt Street for An Older Kind of Magic, and the Rocks for Playing Beattie Bow. I meandered through Darlinghurst and started a story about maps and recursiveness (I finished the first draft today).

I went to the gallery, where it all became very recursive, with sketchers sketching sketchers of sketches.

The Archibald Prize exhibition was on, and I went for the first time ever.

I sat in the Domain and watched people sleep on the grass between sports fields, then went to the State Library for more portraits, and then walked through the Rocks and up to Observatory Hill for the Salon de Refusés (the pictures which didn’t get into the Archibald finals). I saw Nick Stathopoulos’ luminous painting of Shaun Tan.

I went to two Sydney Writers Festival sessions with Karen,  saw Pirates of the Caribbean 4 with her and other friends, and was disappointed that it only contained 1 line from the book which ostensibly suggested it. I descended gracefully from bunkbeds without waking German backpackers.

I went to Carriageworks on the Saturday for the markets and drew dogs until Guan and Bec and Karen and Astrid arrived. I carried proteas and marshmallows for Bec, and met Emma Kidd at her stall at the Finders Keepers markets!

I spent a lovely afternoon with Karen and Ben and Astrid. Ben kept comparing Astrid’s intelligence levels to various animals, trying to get an indication of her current developmental level.

On Saturday night I went to Bec’s for a fundraising dinner for Hope Street with Bec, Rachel, Karen, Ben, Astrid, Bec’s mother, George, Elsie, Lachlyn and Tamara. I think that was everyone. Dinner was delicious – chicken and couscous and butterscotch sauce and marshmallows and marinated figs.

To be continued… Part 2