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.

 

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).

 

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:

 

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

 

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.

 

Illustration Friday: Star Gazing (and some sketchbook)

Above is the official, sister-selected Illustration Friday picture: pen and ink with a hint of colour added on the computer, because even though these were done in a brief respite from my Life And Death Struggle With Vector Illustration I apparently can’t help myself.

Below is a mock-up of a dust cover I’d like to do for my old copy of Day of the Triffids. A week after I finished reading this, I was lying on the oval below college watching a meteorite shower and thinking this is not a good idea, this is not a good idea.

I’ve scanned in the rest of my latest sketchbook and will be putting up the images as I edit them – aiming to get through the Ekka and all caught up in time for Worldcon (preparation for which may be summed up as: arrrrghhhh). NB: If you want to see close-ups, click on the image (which will take you to its Flickr page) and then click on “all sizes” above the picture.

As so often, most of these take place in ANZAC Square Arcade on weekday mornings. I have many pages of little cameos, and am wondering what to do with them – stay tuned.

I may get little business cards with my little walking people on them. I do like them – all neatly pressed into the sketchbook.

Below is one of my favourites – I think it’s the rosy cheeks (I have an ambivalent relationship with the pink marker).

 

Sketchbook Update

I have started a new sketchbook, so am aiming to get the remaining pages of this one scanned and posted so that I can be all caught up before Worldcon. As ever, you can see larger versions of each image by clicking on them, which will take you through to the Flickr page for each.

Pen-and-ink are unlikely to take over from the markers any time soon – there is considerably more mess involved. It does, however, give a beautiful quality of line (especially when I drag my hand through it). At the bottom left are some people who were filming in the city botanic gardens on my lunch break – what appears to be a backdrop is just the ponds I didn’t get around to colouring (please note ibises waiting on the right – always watching).

Sitting in the arcade in the mornings, I’m trying to catch people quickly as they go past. The little walking people and the ‘cameos’ are predominating the sketchbook, but of all the ones I have since drawn, the little beige man on the left, and the little green man beside him are still my favourites. I also like the woman in the orange coat (right page, top left). The tiny cupcakes are exorbitantly priced but this is because, according to the proprietor, they have to be made on silver baking trays by Irish nuns during the new moon, and chilled under the aurora borealis (I paraphrase).

On the right are the original sketches which make up this month’s blog header. I recommend spending lunch hours in the City Botanic Gardens – there are auteurs and boomerang-practicers and contortionists and defence-lessons and eels… I may aim to collect the whole alphabet.

The black and white picture here is a rendition of the famous and beloved Under the Jacaranda Tree, by R. Godfrey Rivers, recently rehung at the State Library. The original jacaranda of the painting was in the City Botanic Gardens.

I like my little walking people. These ones, top left, were outside the Gallery of Modern Art. Not all work out as well as I’d like, but I am fond of check-shirt-guy (top middle) and girl-with-milk-carton (left page, bottom right). This is midwinter, so you may expect to see both quilted jackets and bare arms.