Sketching this week

More practice with 4B Pencil

 

Looking north-west, straight towards the sea, from our deck.

 

I have been reading Tom Wong's 35 year old book on pencil sketching, especially the chapter on vegetation.

 

Depicting different types of trees is quite a skill and mine needs lots more of this kind of practice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So another day I walked around the corner and looked due south towards the mountain, which at this point was hidden by the hill and a bit of morning cloud.

 

This part of town is a historic precinct, known as the Hen and Chickens, because there is a block of five very old houses, built for five daughters of a family over 100 years ago, and the parents' house behind. All are painted white, with black highlights, and can't be altered without careful discussion with the heritage experts.

 

The house in the foreground of this sketch is the eastern chicken and you can just see the hen peeping through the trees behind. The prevailing westerly wind has shaped the two big trees, and others further west also have this effect.

 

 

 

 

Sundays we have been walking down to East End Beach, where a city café has established a summer branch in an old container, called Paris Plage. The coffee is good and the croissants are delicious.

 

There are umbrellas and comfy deck chairs, games for the children, and a collection of tents form a small weekly market.

 

Here is the view westwards from my deck-chair yesterday while we waited for our coffee and croissant to be ready.

 

Below is a sketch I made one evening from a photo.

 

It is of the Public Library in Shrewsbury. In the nineteenth century this building was the school, and it is where Charles Darwin began his education. His statue stands out in front behind the trees.

 

The view is from the grounds of the Castle, early in the morning.