Sketching at the Botanic Gardens

I went to the Wellington Sketchers meetup at Wellington Botanic Gardens. I decided to sketch around the gardens rather than walk down through Thorndon.

There was a brass band concert on at the Soundshell, so I sat and sketched that. Lots of people were having a picnic lunch listening to brass bands from all around the North Island. This isn't normally my thing, but it was a beautiful, sunny day and I rather enjoyed it.

While I was waiting to meet up with my family wandering around the gardens, I saw that they had put a series of art installations around the gardens. This one was where they hung clothes in amongst the trees and flower beds.

A gratuitous photo of the Bay of Islands, North Island, New Zealand (photo by Jonas)

Book from the sketchcrawl at Oriental Parade

I make a little bound book from the sketchcrawl that we did recently at Oriental Parade in Wellington. I had always meant to do that, so I had done my sketches on a page of watercolour paper, already marked with the pages that would be cut out. This is to send to one of my friends overseas, who has never been to Wellington.

The front cover

The inside pages:

This is the centre page, which is a double page sketch. I ummed and ahed about whether to paint it, but decided to leave one uncoloured pen and ink sketch in there.

 

Most of these sketches I did on location at the 42nd Worldwide Sketchcrawl. However, I realised that the book looked a little blank without the otherside of the pages filled in, and I wouldn't have a chance to go back to Oriental Parage to sketch for some time. So I did some extra sketches from photos.

Worldwide Sketchcrawl #42 Wellington

I went to the Wellington Sketchers meetup for the 42nd Worldwide Sketchcrawl. After a pretty mixed bag of weather this summer, we were really lucky to have a wonderful warm summer's day.

We sketched around the marina and the boat sheds next to the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club.

I did a panoramic sketch for the first time. It was the nearby Ocean Sports Open Day today and we saw people learning to kayak, windsurf, and standup paddleboard.

 This is the Monastery on the hill behind Oriental Parade.

This is a fellow sketcher sketching, although I have to say my sketch looks nothign like him!

We moved down to the boat sheds and this is the view looking east along the waterfront. There were quite a few people using their boat shed and going out sailing.

As I waited for my husband to pick me up, I managed one last sketch. I saw this staircase just before the meetup and wanted to sketch it, but didn't quite have the courage to stand beside the road and do it. But I felt fine doing that after the meetup. Wellington has lots of secret, steep staircases like these, joining various roads along the hillsides.

I did them all on one page as I am planning to bind them in a book format.

We had a great day and it was really fun to sketch with everyone again, especially since we knew people all over the world were doing the same today.

Rainy day sketches

I went to the Wellington Sketchers meetup yesterday, and due to the horrible weather forecast, there was unsuprisingly only two of us. A couple of times it looked like it would clear up, but then the wind whipped up and it started raining again.

We started out in the Mojo cafe, waited by the meetup place for any other sketchers, and tried sketching near the path up to the Beehive. However, the wind and rain drove us indoors again and we ended up sitting in a nearby MacDonalds which had a good view of the station and the street.

Even though the weather was awful, it was lovely meeting Lim Su Min from the Singapore Urban Sketchers, and also to have a chance to draw just sit and draw people. I've wanted to draw people moving in Wellington's iconic wind, for some time, but have never had the opportunity.  

Above and below: the view from McDonalds.

Sketching meetup at Plimmerton

Yesterday I went to the Wellington Sketchers meetup at Plimmerton, north of Wellington. It was such a lovely morning.

 The view across the bay. I had left my paints at home, but managed to get by with what was still dry on my palette.

Looking inland: People eating icecream.  I used my watercolour pencils this time. I was pretty happy with them.

People looking for crabs and starfish in the rockpools.

Plimmerton sea shore, looking across to the Titahi Peninsula.

Worldwide Sketchcrawl # 41: Wellington

I went to the Wellington Sketchers meetup for the Worldwide Sketchcrawl #41 and spent a lovely morning sketching with Jon, while my kids played on the beach. I was so glad that the weather turned out so well and that I came out to sketch this morning.

Days Bay Jetty

We sat on the jetty sketching and this was a great place to be: I could have drawn things from here all day. I sketched one of the houses across Days Bay.  I think this was the first time I did a whole sketch with my watercolor pencils on location, so that worked well.

There were a few fisherman on the end of the jetty, who are always great to sketch because you can often get a whole stance sketched before they move again.

The seagulls put on quite a performance for us, as they fought over titbits thrown to them by the fishermen.  I think we saw the full gamut of seagull communication this morning.

Last weekend, I made some pencil rolls for my watercolour pencils and they worked a treat today. Nothing blew away in the breeze, and I could see what colours I had on hand.

 Days Bay Jetty, looking inland.

Sketching at Queens Wharf

I went to the Wellington Sketchers meetup at Queens Wharf yesterday. We met outside Fergs Kayaks and I sketched the building. We used to kayak a lot on Wellington Harbour from Fergs when we lived in the city but have slowed down now we have kids. I coloured it later with watercolour pencils at home.

Below: the original, without the colour.

The wind started getting too strong so we went and sketched indoors in the Wellington Museum of the City and Sea. I can still remember this museum being designed. One of the museum's trustees often went hiking with us and told us a lot about how it was being started up. It is in a beautiful old restored building.

There is a room on the ground floor which is for temporary exhibits and the current one is about collecting the stories of Wellington. They have a wall where people can write (or draw!) a story about Wellington, and then they will upload them all online. People really related to it, and stopped and read the stories with their kids. Sitting sketching in the museum, you can hear the floorboards creaking above and it almost sounds like you are in an old ship.

I did this with my cheap black biro, which I think was quite helpful in loosening up to just simply sketch and not try to sketch anything ¨good¨. 

Here is a photo of the door with the stories from another angle.

Below: Queens Wharf is also a kind of open air museum and they have left a few of the old cranes up for people to look at. I wish I had taken more photos of the other ones!

 

Sketching at Oriental Parade

I went to the Wellington Sketchers meetup at Oriental Parade on the weekend and we sketched on the roof of the Fisherman's Table restaurant. It was a lovely crisp winter day.

Above: Looking east. I practised holding the pen like a paintbrush, which is one of the methods of sketching suggested in the sketching book I am reading at the moment. Mmm. Not 100% sure about this idea, but maybe it just takes more practice!

Above: One of the lovely wooden houses near the restaurant.

Above: Wellington Harbour from Oriental Parade beach.