Sunset

Mucking around on boats :: Balmy dusk, perfect time for that sundowner.

Sketching Kit One (Canon Camera Bag)

I’m experimenting with what is the minimum amount of sketching gear I need. Specifically what can fit in my camera bag along with mu normal camera gear, The first kit consists of an A7 sketch book and the very compact little Cotman’s Sketchers’ Pocket Box produced by Windsor & Newton, a water brush, a soft pencil, a dagger brush and a jell ink pen. I also hand carry an A5 general purpose sketch book (shown below)which slots nicely into a pocket on my new beach chair.
The original benefit of the water brush is it has its own reservoir for water, so I don’t need to carry a wash jar and water. However the water brush is really cool you can easily control how much water is required by squeezing on the barrel. I did find a need somewhere to blot off the pigment when I want to change colours, the back of my wrist was fine at first but I think I’ll start putting a little folder kitchen paper in the sketch box in future. The little A7 sketch book is really only good for simple sketches particularly a quick composition or notan sketch.
The watercolour is in half pan size and the colours really intense but the dilute down to wonderful translucent washes. I have already added a turquoise, in place of Chinese white, but I find the two greens (viridian and hookers green in the set a bit intense, and might swap one out for a mauve, indigo or even payne’s grey. Time will tell. This is a really wonderful little set and fits snuggly in the front of the standard canon camera bag.
Final I also have my camera, may canon camera is my designated beach camera at the moment, so I can always take a few photos as reference.

I Like my watercolour wash sketch a lot even though I didn’t get time to let it dry enough to finish off on the beach. I then remembered having some good results using my compositional sketch as the training style with google deep dream generator and dreamscope app so I put a few other photo/sketches through the style filter. The results are pretty amazing.

Festival of Sails & looking for Summer

 

I went down to Green Point to watch the festival of sails making  their way down to Geelong. But the light on the sails didn’t last long. A squall soon raced across the bay and it began to rain, not exactly summer. Oh well home again…

Latter in the afternoon The afternoon bought plenty of sunshine and clear skies and I noticed that the back patio had a real 1960s Californian Hockney feel, aka endless sunshine. So I took a few sets of bracketed images from slightly different positions, with Hockney’s idea of “reverse perspective” in mind.

Light Breeze

The Patch :: framing fun

 

The patch themes this week are frames & modes of transport, so I figured a shot out the window on the flight over to new Zealand would be perfect. Well the window was dirty and it wasn’t easy to fix that, up in the bay of islands the dominant mode of transport is yachts, expensive ones. So I have spent a few days looking through any manner of frames, including the stocks on the wharf at Russell. In the end I choose three yachts in the bay opposite the French mission, but I used Perfect Effect’s and the border called Russell to emphasis the framing.

A nice place for Lunch

It was a fairly lengthy drive from Auckland north, a lot of road works and windy road, but Whangarei was a welcome rest stop. I’m still on the look out for framing theme and the shot from the veranda of Reyburn House, now a local art gallery seemed worth capturing. The historic port area,known as the Whangarei basin,  is a great place to have lunch and many of the usual tourist traps.The mooring were full of international yachts. The interesting canopy bridge doubles as market and festival venue.

Chilly Evening on Lake Ontario