Oz Comic-Con Brisbane sketches

Oz Comic-Con sketches! (I also sketched the March Homegrown Oz Comic-Con). Special thanks to Karissa who went to my house and found my sketchbook when I forgot it on the Sunday!

Importantly, these include another great (but very different) Kermit.

There was a fair bit of space in front of my table, which was excellent for sketching, and observing occasional convocations of spider-men.

There is a Death above! And a reprise by Mr Smiths below.

Best are the little interactions, especially between different fandoms, and the ordinary moments of superheroes checking their phones.

And the odd Kylo Ren doing some shopping.

The March sketches are here: Oz Comic-Con sketches

Comics and writing guests, with Kate and Sarah who kept us more or less under control

TV Sketching: Shakespeare & Hathaway

I will put up the travel sketches once I’ve scanned them, but in the meantime: Some TV sketching! Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators, Season 4 Episode 2 (f.i.n.a.l.l.y. available in Australia).

As usual, the rule is: no pausing the show.

I didn’t sketch the first episode because I was eating dinner at the time, but I’m not ruling out revisiting it.

These are mostly featuring Sebastian and Luella, of course.

For more TV sketching, see the tag: TV sketching.

Sketching — Oxley State School

This week, I spent a delightful and slightly chaotic session sketching prep students in the school gardens, with P&C and Landcare volunteers. (Thanks to Yvonne, particularly, for organising this, on the basis of my sketching the committee in action at the election!)

Such fun and joyful subjects (and gardens) — but also there was the additional artistic challenge of trying to sketch while five-year-olds swung on my drawing arm and offered critiques.

A really charming time, and it was especially nice to be involved with the local community, of varying ages.

Flashback: Cafe sketching in 2011

This surfaced again recently.

Here I am in 2011(!) drawing on the wall of a cafe in King’s Cross, Sydney (Coco Bar, I can’t find that it exists anymore). I’d been staying in a youth hostel across the road and sketching while having coffee each morning, and the cafe staff kept asking me to paint a mural. I kept saying no, I was leaving soon (and hadn’t done a mural). Then they came out one morning with a permanent marker and said, “Free coffee until you leave,” and I bargained them up to free daily coffee and pain au chocolat, and then freehand-drew the picture directly on the wall.

This, incidentally, is still the best way to get me to do most things: trap me in the location, feed me, and don’t let me out until I’ve done the thing.

Here’s the page of the sketchbook I am using as reference in the photo.

Electoral sketching

Election day sketching! A very cold, rainy day, so sketched near the sausages.

Here are some action shots by Liz.

Adding a touch of colour

Between steps at the school

Getting meta

Sketchbook: Boy&Girl — Brisbane Powerhouse

Here are all the pages from my sketchbook from last night at the wild, impressive, ribald and hilarious cabaret/performance Boy&Girl (from Oscar Production Company) at the Brisbane Powerhouse (it’s still on for two more nights).

As previously mentioned, I expanded my usual limited speed-sketching colour palette by adding pink for flamboyance.

The joy of this sort of sketching is in capturing the movements.

The physical personalities of the people on stage.

(And it was delightful meeting more of the cast afterwards, and watching them pick out people — even the ones without the super-obvious costumes.)

Lighting is tricky in this medium, at this speed, in a show with LED and fire components.

But occasionally — as with the audience members at the table below, and the crew on the first page, I can capture a hint of what the light was doing.

Boots and heels!

Lyrical dance and sequins and shadows and fire!

As posted yesterday, here is my little setup in the balcony — the crew let me borrow a stand and light, which was great. If I get to sneak in to sketch a show like this again, I’m going to experiment with some sort of low-powered booklight.

The show is on for two more nights, and check out Oscar Production Company to see what else they do!

Boy&Girl

Up late sketching Boy&Girl

Audience settling in, crew in position, MC takes the stage

This evening I went to Boy&Girl (from Oscar Production Company) at the Brisbane Powerhouse — I’d been on Saturday to watch it with friends, but they (specifically Em and Bryce) let me back this evening to sketch from the balcony!

I’ll post more pictures later, but there are only two more nights of shows. so if you’re in Brisbane and want some ribald, lyrical, raunchy, acrobatic cabaret-style fun (and it certainly is having enormous fun, as well as being very skilful), head to the Powerhouse website to book.

I was working mostly in the dark, so had to limit my colour choices severely to be able to find anything. Usually, as posted about previously, I’d default to blue and gold. But given the colour and spangles (and fire, etc) of the show, I added in hot pink and a lighter pink, which actually gave a reasonable range.

More pictures soon. In the meantime, here is my setup in the balcony, on one of the lit music stands being used by the crew.

TV Sketching: Queens of Mystery

Some sketches (done in Procreate) of Queens of Mystery Season 2 Episodes 1 & 2, “Sparring with Death” (Acorn TV).

The usual rules apply: no pausing.

Never enough time to draw houses!

Never trust a sauna

There were some very complicated chairs

Group shots are a trick at speed

Tiny shoelace-tying moment! Also: dramatic lighting remains enjoyable to draw.

It’s a very stylised show, which makes it a lot of fun to sketch: strong clear colour cues and coding, distinctive silhouettes, slightly exaggerated movements. I wouldn’t mind going back and sketching the first season.

More TV sketching: Murder, She Wrote

A few more TV sketches! These are from Murder, She Wrote — Season 1 Episodes 3 (“Deadly Lady”), 4 (“Birds of a Feather”) and 5 (“Hooray for Murder”).

Drawn on the iPad using Procreate, and as usual the rule is I can’t pause the show.

Always fun drawing lamps. I’m happy with that rosy face on the right.

’80s fringes defy gravity.

The HAIR

flamingo

Murder scenes are fascinating for foreshortening. Also, ’80s depictions of Hollywood aren’t glamorous in the way they are now.

Let her in!

A girl can never wear too much blue/purple eyeshadow.

Lessons:

• Jessica Fletcher is tricky to draw at speed. It would be useful to draw her for a while from stills until I work out a visual shorthand.
• Concentrating on one element (e.g., hair or mouths) is rewarding and simplifies choosing what to concentrate on.

TV Sketching — Murder, She Wrote

More TV sketching! As ever, the rule is I can’t pause the show while drawing.

These are for “The Murder of Sherlock Holmes”, the first two episodes of Murder, She Wrote, which is FINALLY available to watch online. The first season at least. (9Now, if you’re in Australia.)

It has a lot more fast closeups on faces — particularly Jessica Fletcher’s — than some of the other shows I’ve sketched, and I don’t have a shorthand for her yet. This is no speed at which to try likenesses!

Fancy-dress parties are THE BEST to sketch, in life or TV. Costumes are a brilliant stand-in for character likenesses or other physical accuracy (as for any sketches of Sebastian from Shakespeare & Hathaway).

Tricky perspective angles, e.g. looking at a walkway from below, are also a challenge at speed. It’s easy to rely on what I “know” (mostly eye-level) vs what I’m actually seeing.

So many trenchcoats. Also, every time I concentrate on strong lighting in a scene, I’m pleased with the result — torchlight here at lower right, or from previous Midsomer Murders the blue light from a phone and light through a chapel door.