Sketching the Workplace Competition: Shortlisting

Well, I can't quite believe that it's nearly time for me to fly home to England. It's been quite an adventure. Luckily, it's not quite over yet ...

Since I finished the sketching part of my residency at the CTWD. John and I have been away travelling for a nearly a month through Western Australia (which is why there's been no blogging), but we arrived back in Perth on Sunday. 

This week, I have a last few days of things to do. One big thing that's left, is to judge the competition. On Monday morning, I had the excitement of arriving at the research centre to find a huge pile of entries waiting!

I spent the whole day trying to whittle them down. Not easy! I created a long list, then a shortlist, all of which was incredibly hard, as the standard was really high and the entries were often quite different to one another. These are just a few details I photographed to show you (they are all longer concertina sketchbooks), from just a random handful of them.

There were over 40 entries, from all over the world: Australia and England (obviously), but also Canada, Japan, India, Italy, Portugal, Hong Kong and America. Which is really interesting, since you get to see jobs and workplaces from a cultural perspective, as well as a personal one. 

We were lucky enough to have one or two jobs represented by more than one country, like these butcher sketches, from India...

...and also from England:

The range of jobs was really wide too: a Museum Collections Manager, dealing with stuffed animals, a cello teacher, a bookbinder, a mechanic. There was a big garment manufacturing business, an artisan jeweller, a florist... Plus loads more. The researchers are so excited by the material. They've been eagerly watching the pile of envelopes grow while I've been travelling.

We devised a numbering system for the judging, to keep things anonymous, just in case I happen to know anyone who has entered. I am presenting my shortlist to Professor Parker on Wednesday. 

She will look long and hard at the written element of the project, to make a judgement on how incisive and communicative each entry is. That, as well as a 2nd pair of eyes on the sketches, will help us choose the two winners.

Just two! Oh dear...

I have a couple more days of sketching to do myself before I fly home - jobs which fell off the end earlier in the residency. I'll tell you about them when I get home.

And don't forget to watch this space for more news about the competition prizewinners!

Art and Offal!

As you can see, I arrived safely in Australia. We are staying in a lovely wooden cabin, in a remote seaside community called Peaceful Bay, where it is cooler than Perth. We are here for another week, before we travel back to begin my residency. 

Mostly, so far, I have been passing the time swimming, boating and lounging about, all of which is great fun of course, but I had an especially interesting day on Wednesday. Professor Parker, who commissioned my work here, also has a holiday cabin at Peaceful Bay. She thought it might be useful to do a try-out, since she spotted a great candidate for her research.

Remember that she is interviewing different people about their jobs? Well, the man who works at the local tip, Jeremy, really caught her eye, so I packed up my sketching kit and we drove up there to talk to him.

It’s a profession many people might turn their nose up at, but Jeremy told us it’s the best job in the world. He loves the freedom, the sociable nature of the work and the spare time between visitors, often hours to himself when, amongst other things, he creates sculptures from bits and bobs he has salvaged. 

I sketched his wonderfully peaceful little sculpture garden, tucked behind his shack. Stones, wood, bottle tops and other interesting shaped small things are strung together and hang from the trees. Aboriginal- style decorations, again from bottle tops, wind around tree trunks. A miscellany of larger objects are planted in the grass. There used to be much, much more - it was apparently the talk of Peaceful Bay - until one day someone came in the night and stole it all. Jeremy told us that knocked his duck off somewhat, so he's not making much now. Very sad.

I sketched for 3 hours. It was a surprisingly pleasant place, despite the piles of refuse.  The only down-side was an occasional waft of something ghastly, which turned out to be the fish offal bin! Everything else was unsmelly and really tidily gathered into piles. There was one huge pile just of discarded bikes! 

It was hard-going in the full sun, so when possible I tried to find at least partial shade, which did dictate to some extent what I drew. 

It was a very useful experiment to see if we needed to tweak anything and to help Prof Parker to better understand how I work. It was really interesting too. What a fun start!

Australia Here I Come!

Golly, the time has come. Suddenly! We leave in the morning.

There are so many things to think about when you aren't going to be around for such a long time. We have even had to organise friends to come and live in our house, so it won't be empty.

I'm really hoping I won't get there and discover something important we forgot. I think it's all pretty sorted. The people I am working with at the research centre in Perth have helped with all the boring stuff, like my work visa and insurance requirements (don't you just hate all that side of things?), and they have organised some lovely accommodation too. Plus, so that I don't have to fill my luggage with paint and paper, all the art materials for my residency have been ordered in Australia and delivered direct to Perth.

I will post pictures of what I am up to on Facebook and Instagram, just as soon as I can, and will keep up the blog for the 2 months I'm in Perth, so do keep looking in. In the meantime, I thought you might like to see a few of the sketches I did at our most recent sketchcrawl, on Saturday. It was lovely to do it so close to me leaving, as it was a chance to say goodbye to my UK sketch-buddies. I'll be meeting up with Urban Sketchers Perth when I get there.

We spent our day in the centre of Sheffield, in the lovely Winter Gardens. I have had a few goes at this over the years and it is very tricky, as there is just so much going on. I think this is the first time I have felt that I have coped with it reasonably well.

That's a good omen I hope for my painting time in Oz, not just for my 2 month residency, but also the travelling time, when we'll be in Western Australia, and I hope to do lots of painting out and about.

Wish me luck!

Travels in Lanzarote Day 15: Soaked to my Knickers

We both had such a great time in Lanzarote, neither of us really wanted to leave. I was especially sad to leave behind such great painting inspiration. Fortunately, because our flight home wasn't until 7pm, we were able to get ourselves all packed and out of the Haria house with still lots of time to enjoy our final day.

We drove back up to the area near Maguez where we were the day before, for me to do a bit more painting while John pottered and took photos. We couldn't do a proper walk, as we didn't want to get all sweaty before flying. Spot little me in the landscape above.

I started with the A3 watercolour of the hill at the top. Here it is with the view:

Then I had a go at the volcano to the left (the same one I drew in my Intense pencils the previous morning). As usual, my second painting is looser and more impressionistic than my first:

By the time I had finished, we were ready for a café con leche and wanted the opportunity to say goodbye to the lovely turquoise sea at Punta Mujeres.

We sat on the wall, watching the sea slowly coming in. I started an Inktense pencil drawing of the view to my left. It was very relaxing, basking in the sunshine, listening to the sounds of the sea on the rocks...

Both John and I registered the larger wave arriving. While John got up, turned to me and said, 'Lynne, watch out for...', my blasé brain told me 'It'll probably be fine.' 

A moment later, the wave crashed onto the rocks at our feet. I was quick enough to lift my sketchbook out at arms length, but not quick enough to move my body off the wall. It was as if somebody had emptied a bucket over my head. So much for not getting sweaty before the flight! At least it was a warm, sunny day.

The wave incident happened just as we needed to leave for the airport anyway. Luckily, I had finished my drawing, near enough, and the concertina didn't get damaged, but I had to sit in the car, wet to my underwear (who'd have thought my undies would get such repeated mentions?). At the airport, I wrestled a change of clothes from the suitcase, so it all worked out. Actually, wrestling my A3 sketchbook into the case was the biggest challenge of the day!

Bye bye Lanzarote. We will be back. I hope you, gentle readers, have enjoyed following my fun and games, as well as my artistic challenges.

Travels in Lanzarote Day 14: Three Volcano Views

We drove north of where we were staying, to the beautiful hills above the tiny village of Maguez. This end of the island is much more lush. We walked through a field of brilliant, yellow flowers and ate lunch on a rocky outcrop overlooking this valley, with its gorgeous volcano view:

I am always most excited by the shapes and textures, so I had to draw the hillside large enough to express all that with my Inktense watercolour pencils. I just kept unfolding page after page, until I had filled 6 facets of my concertina book.

We walked on out of that valley, around the base of La Corona, the volcano I have painted a few times now, from different vantage points.

We were much closer that I had got before and, as we walked round, this great profile view of the spiky-topped caldera started to appear, which I had to capture in watercolour before we moved on. John's very patient and is always happy to loiter for anything from 5 minutes to an hour. I think this was about 10-15 minutes. Just an impression really, although often they are my favourites:

I love the way the green shrubs create a spotty pattern.

We walked the rest of the day, before rewarding ourselves with a beer at a little bar in Maguez. It took no time at all to drive the short distance back to Haria, so I was just in time to capture the sun going down over the hills by the house:

There is always something a little special about the way the late sun intensifies the colours and makes everything glow.

A good and fruitful day.

To see the rest of the painting from this trip (I painted almost every day), click here and scroll down past my piece of textiles based on this trip.

Travels in Lanzarote Day 13: the Volcano Park

We were driving through the volcano park in the south west of the island. This is a stunning place, where every turn in the road reveals yet more shapes, colours and textures. 

I was desperate to get out and paint, so John pulled up and I sat beside the car on my little stool, with my A3 sketchbook on my lap:

I spent most of my time on the one above. The sun was going down fast, so I was about to call it a day when I changed my mind, did an about-face, and painted another, really quick, instinctive sketch of the view behind me:

I was really pleased with the gestural, abstracted way the lava in the foreground worked. Hope you agree!

Travels in Lanzarote: Day 12. Volcanos and Cacti

Another long walk: again from the hills above Haria down to the sea, but down a valley which brought us a little further down the coast. It was a steep valley, so we were pleased to be walking downhill:

We pootled along the coast, via our favourite little café at Punta Mujeres, had a quick paddle to cool our feet, then walked back up to Haria by a different route in the afternoon. The return journey took us past a good view of the volcano, La Corona, the same one a painted on Day 6. We had time for me to sit and have another go. I perched up on a lava-wall to get a good vantage point:

This time I was faced with the challenge of painting a field of cacti in the foreground. Not ideal. Walls made of lava-boulders are a bit of a challenge too!

I did my best with watercolour first, then worked into it with my Inktense pencils, being VERY careful not to drop any through the gaps between the rocks of my wall. I've done that more than once in the past. I also dropped my pencil into a pig-pen once, when I was sketching in a city farm. An enormous, ugly pig rushed up and promptly crunched it up. Pigs, it seems, really will eat anything. but I digress...

Again, my concertina book was the perfect thing for sketching something long like this, without it having to be draw really quite small, to fit in a regular book.

As you can see, I extended the sketch at the last minute, with my watercolour pencils alone, as I didn't like the way the composition worked with the section I had done in watercolour - another thing that you can only do with a concertina book. There wasn't time to go back and paint that new section, as we had to get going, to get back before dark.

Travels in Lanzarote: Day 11. Sand EVERYWHERE!

This was a day of two halves again. In the morning, we visited another of Manrique's projects: his house on the lava field at Tahiche. The upper section was sleek and minimal. It had more recently been turned into a gallery, showing his paintings and those of his friends.

It featured big windows framing views of the volcano and lava which, in one place, was actually allowed to flow inside:

But it was the subterranean section which was really unusual. Manrique had sited the house amongst more lava-tubes. These were less gigantic than the ones we visited previously, and consisted of a series of 'bubbles': rounder sections between narrower fissures.

He made corridors from the narrower walkways through the lava and turned the bubbles into a series of connected indoors-outdoors rooms, with the uppermost part of each bubble open to the sky. Perfect spaces for somewhere so hot.

After our sightseeing, we went for a walk along the beach beneath the Famara Cliffs which I painted earlier in the trip. It was VERY windy, so apart from a couple of other walkers, the only people on the beach were a few kite-surfers.

When we had walked up and back, I really wanted to paint, but the only shelter from the wind came from some sand dunes. We tucked ourselves in behind one, which did help a lot.

It was only after I had been painting for about 10 minutes, that I realised how much sand was whipping round behind the dune and sticking to my watercolour. If you enlarge the picture below, you should be able to see the sand all over the sketchbook:

A few more minutes, and there was more sand than paint on my palette! I soldiered on, but very soon it was ridiculous. We realised that we too were covered in sand - it was all in our clothes and encrusted into our hair. 

So we beat a retreat. At least I got more or less finished and the majority of the sand brushed off once it was dry.

Travels in Lanzerote: Day 10. A Little Bit of Fame

Another walking day. This time we walked from the hills of Haria, down to the sea, finishing at the lovely little place we were at the day before: Punta Mujeres.

When we got there, we visited the same little street café as the day before. After our café con leche, we sat down at the sea edge. The colours were so vibrant.

It was mesmeric, watching the sea crashing over the rocks and gradually filling the swimming area. I took the opportunity to do a painting. It was a bit of a challenge, but I was very interested in the clear water in the walled-off section.

Little did I know, but a resident of Punta Mujeres was watching me from the café above. It turned out that she was a regular writer for the Lanzarote magazine. She took lots of photos and says I will be a feature in the March or April edition!

We chatted to her and her husband and they bought us a beer. Then, when we realised we had missed our bus home, they invited us into their home, gave us home-made lentil soup and local wine and then drove us back to Haria. How lovely is that? Sketching does it again!