Today, I met up with a couple of friends to do some urban sketching on Napoleon Street, Battery Point, in Tasmania.
Battery Point was originally settled in 1804. In 1811, land grants were given to free settlers and farms were established. By 1814, several farms were located in the area. In 1818, a battery of guns, called the Mulgrave Battery, were placed on the southern side of the point as part of the coastal defences on the deep water port established at Hobart Town. Battery Point derived its name from the installations of guns at this site https://www.ourtasmania.com.au/hobart/battery-pt.html
I get my art prints printed on 310gsm A-2 sized watercolour print-paper. When I trim my prints, I often have offcuts and this pile is getting quite tall. I thought I would see if it could be used for urban sketching. It worked quite well but I will have to adjust my painting technique because it is absorbent and the paper bleeds when you apply extra watery paint, as I discovered when I painted the chimney.
Trialling the print version of watercolour paper
I then felt forced to add blue sky to try to disguise the chimney-bleeding.
Blue sky colour added
The couple hours flew by and it was time to pack up the paints, move the cars from their two-hour parking limit and enjoy a hot cuppa.
The paper has potential, so I will keep experimenting with it.
Drawn from the Hobart, Tasmania terminal, while waiting for our plane.
After arriving on Friday, we wandered around and settled for a bite to eat in one of the laneways in the city. This was our view from our eating spot.
View from our eating spot in Meyers Lane, Melbourne
initial drawing, Meyers Lane
Meyers Lane’s view
The next day started by a visit to the South Melbourne Market and then exploring St Kilda, including this cool community garden.
cool sculptures in various gardeners’ patches
I love worms too 🙂
I love buttons for art and decorating. 🙂
The visit to St. Kilda ended with sketching a duplex that caught my eye on Park Street. I love the roofline decorative tiles so many of the older houses have in this area. On Park Street itself, there were quite a few raised garden beds in front of houses.
One of the first exhibition picture on display is Picasso’s second-ever etching titled “Le Repas Frugal”, 1904.
Two of Picasso’s paintings of his first wife, Olga Khokhlova. Despite the Spanish flavour of the 1917 painting, Olga is from Russia, a ballet dancer, with Ukrainian origins. I find it interesting that she is depicted with quite big hands and feet in the first painting. From 1919 to 1929, Olga received over 500 letters from her mother and sister, whom she didn’t see.
“The Reader” 1920 oil on canvas
Olga in Armchair by Pablo Picasso, 1917
“Portrait of a woman” by Pablo Picasso, 1938, oil on canvas Maar and Picasso became lovers and intellectual confidants. Maar was the inspiration for many portraits, including this 1938 canvas
Picasso’s “The Kiss” 1921 oil on canvas
“Weeping woman” oil on canvas by Pablo Picasso, 1937
Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 “Massacre in Korea” 1951 oil on plywood Picasso painted this work in reaction to the Korean War. Nothing in this painting specifically ties to Korea, not the landscape or people. Picasso said that when he thinks of war he does not think of a particular trait, only that of monstrosity. I agree and think this should be applied to all wars, including the current war being waged on Ukraine.
“The Bay of Cannes” 1958 oil on canvas
These are only a fraction of the paintings on display. After the exhibition, we found a spot to sketch the renowned Flinders Station. I was settling nicely into the zone, then the rain disturbed my happy space.
My weekend in Melbourne finished with the fairy tale magic of Cinderella.
Trust that your week is is travelling along magically.
It is winter, so it’s not surprising that the few days I spent in Canberra were wet and wintery. As a consequence, I didn’t do as many sketches as I had hoped.
The highlight of my trip was visiting the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of Australia. I attempted to sketch the geometrical sculptures of the museum.
The roofline includes some silver looking tiles with braille. It is a curious sight because nobody is tall enough to be able to read as braille is designed to be read.
Perspective-challenging geometrical museum entrance
Sculpture at the entrance of the museum, with more braille panels along the roofline
My friend and I wondered what was written. We googled it and found quite the story behind these braille tiles!
“Sorry” was written in braille several times as well as “Resurrection city”, a reference to a 1968 civil rights protest in Washington DC. Other messages were: “God knows”, “She’ll be right”, “Mate”, “Who is my neighbour?”, “Time will tell”, “Good as gold” and “Love is blind”.
Howard Raggatt, the architect, said that he chose the politically provocative word, “sorry”, as a personal protest against the Howard government’s unwillingness to apologise to the aboriginal Stolen Generations of Australia.
Not even the museum director knew what the braille characters were. Raggatt nearly got away with it, until an eagle-eyed engineer decoded the writing on the wall just before the building was due to open in March 2001.
The reaction was explosive, he said. “Ballistic is an understatement — they were just beside themselves with anger,” he said. The Howard government was livid and insisted that the braille panels were removed. But he refused, instead offering up a compromise. He suggested installing metal discs across the panels. He got the last laugh though as some of the ‘sorry’ panels survived the purge, and have been there all along, for 20 years. “We censored enough for people to be happy with it,” he said. “I don’t know that anyone checked up on us, and we may not have been as thorough as we should’ve been.”
I sketched the interior of the apartment we stayed at. I drew this standing up and drew it all with an Artline pen, with no initial pencil lines, and then added watercolour paint.
Lounge room in Canberra apartment
We tried a few of the cafe’s around the apartment. This was the view from one of the cafe’s that I tried to sketch.
view from cafe window
I didn’t finish the sketch because it just about did my head in.
There was a green wall along one side of the apartment
We had a short wander through the botanical garden.
A fungi convention at the base of an Eucalyptus nandewarica
I thoroughly enjoyed my day in Oatlands, Tasmania, about an hour’s drive from Hobart. The town is packed with gorgeous scenes, surprises, and history. The Georgian architecture, sculptures, rock walls and gardens are such a treat for the eyes.
I love rock walls! and there are so many in Oatlands
Another gorgeous rock wall with an eagle taking a strong stance pose
Along High Street (the main street through Oatlands) there are gorgeous houses and gardens.
there are so many beautiful stone walls and gorgeous gardens
We stopped into Vintage on High Café https://www.instagram.com/vintageonhigh/?hl=en, where I enjoyed a cuppa and sketched the shop across the street, which unfortunately was closed on Mondays.
Vintage Cafe on High Street
The narrow space between the cafe and the next building. I like the iron lace.
my sketch of the closed Elm Cottage Store on High Street, Oatlands
The cafe has a wonderful outside seating area, including an abundance of fruit trees and this cool stork sculpture.
stork sculpture among the fruit trees
Further down High Street, there’s another stork sculpture!
I love this sculpture!
The Oatlands Court House was built in 1829. Many death sentences were handed out here however, all but eighteen were later commuted to life sentences. The eighteen men were executed in the nearby jail. One poor soul was innocent of the murder he was convicted of, but it was too late for him. The real murderer confessed of his ill-deed on his death bed. Solomon Blay, who resided in Oatlands, was the executioner for Oatlands, Launceston and Hobart.
The Court House
We visited the remnants of the heritage listed jail in Oatlands. Oatlands was established as a military garrison in 1827 and was the primary military outpost in inland Tasmania. Over the next decade, close to 90 buildings were constructed in the town using convict labour, including the court house, soldiers’ barracks, watch house, and officers’ quarters. Today, the town has one of the largest collections of intact Georgian architecture in Australia.
The goal
Completed in 1835, the Oatlands Gaol was designed to hold over 200 prisoners but was never fully occupied. Used as a military gaol and municipal prison until 1936, the complex was closed and largely demolished in 1937. The gaol’s main use since the 1950s has been as the site of Oatlands’ municipal swimming pool. https://www.southernmidlands.tas.gov.au/oatlands-gaol/
Another view of the gaol
The worn steps at the side entrance of the goal
You can pick up a key from the Oatlands council building that gives you access to three buildings, the gaol, courthouse and the commissariat https://www.southernmidlands.tas.gov.au/oatlands-commissariat/ The council had had some reports about problems with the electronic key and I could confirm that there are problems. Only one out of the three keys worked.
3 and 5 Albert Street Cottages in Oatlands
The block of land that these cottages stand on was granted to John Goulder, a freed convict in 1839. Goulder settled here in 1832and built a large weatherboard house. By 1839, he had fenced his land with stone walling and built another house, a two-storey house with 8 rooms and outbuildings. In 1940, he bought the Kentish Arms and continued to expand his real estate portfolio. He died in 1880 and by 1885 the original stone house was replaced by these cottages. It is believed that the materials from the original house were used in the construction of the cottages.
Near these two cottages is this building. I found the three different materials used to make this three-in-one type of building intriguing. There’s stone, pressed tin and wood.
Albert Street
I love this awesome perspective example that urban sketchers grapple with on a regular basis. This is the divide between the cottage and three-in-one building.
We also visited the lovely Weaver’s Cottages Studio. They want to stock some of my cards and prints. 😊
Visitors coming into Oatlands from the opposite direction that we entered, are welcomed by cool cow sculptures in Lake Dulverton. May be they are possibly trying to convey that … if you find yourself knee-deep in water, be like the cow and stay calm??? Do you think?? Well, cows used to roam the streets and wander down to the lake to eat the native grasses. Apparently, collecting the family cow from the lake was an after school chore assigned to the children in Oatlands. https://www.southernmidlands.tas.gov.au/cows-in-lake-sculpture/
Cows wading in Lake Dulverton, Oatlands
Of course, you can’t visit Oatlands and miss the windmill that stands out proud and tall on the landscape.
The windmill
The brand new, soon-to-open Distillery at the windmill site
If you’re driving up the Midland Highway in Tasmania, I recommend that you take the time to turn off and visit enchanting Oatlands.
Apologies that I’ve been a bit slack with writing blog posts recently. I’ve been rather busy starting the new adventure of opening a gallery in Hobart’s Salamanca Arts Centre in southern Tasmania.
There was a lot of work fitting out a generous-sized and sunlit room, organising insurance, a point of sales system and the like.
painting the creation of the back feature wall
The gallery is featuring a variety of art mediums with a focus on glass. There are many Tasmanian and artists from mainland Australia represented in the gallery.
Tasmanian John Osborne’s lino work in the back and Laurie Young’s glass work in the front left glass tower
A variety of glass, wood and leather work is at Wooby Lane Gallery
We had a soft opening on the wintery evening of June 10, 2021, to officially open the doors of the new Wooby Lane Gallery, on the corner of Salamanca Place and Wooby’s Lane.
I love Opossum Bay, located in southern Tasmania. I feel like I’ve travelled to another part of the world but it’s only about a 25 minute drive from my house, and the drive is picturesque too.
I love the shape of the bay and I love what this resident has made from random, lost thongs found on the beach! What an awesome and creative idea.
a photo from the other direction
The stand-out house for me at Opossum Bay is this quirky lighthouse house. Through the darkened lower windows you can catch glimpse of a large wooden boat with a mermaid-like figurehead. It looks impressive from a distance so I can only imagine how much more so close up.
my favourite house along the beach
I was keen to try to draw the lighthouse house. I struggled with the perspective but it was still fun to try.
My sketch
There were a variety of seagulls enjoying the bay too.
During the Australia Day long weekend, I visited Stanley and Corinna, small towns on the northwest coast of Tasmania. We saw amazing things on our road trip, but all the sights seen were in the realm of what you would expect to see: animals, birds, spectacular scenery and the like.
one of the many cute cottages in Corinna, Tasmania
But things got a little different on the leg from Stanley to Corinna.
To get to Corinna from the Smithton direction, you drive on a 70 km stretch of unsealed road, full of potholes. The road is quite narrow and when a white ute was approaching, we pulled off to the side and stopped to let it pass. We were somewhat affronted that the driver didn’t make a thank you hand gesture and quickly made the judgment that they must not be local as this is Tasmanian behaviour and considered good manners. Sure enough, it was confirmed when we saw that the ute had a Queensland number plate.
We continued our slow drive, manoeuvring around potholes, avoiding one other car that passed us. About 10 km later, a dark ute passed us, flashed its lights and reversed. A policeman jumped out of his ute with his mobile phone showing us a photo and asking if we had seen this white ute with Queensland number plates? The officer asked us about three times if we were definitely certain we had seen the ute and we recounted him our encounter with this ill-mannered Queenslander. (It turned out he wasn’t from Queensland). Then the policeman started asking us tricky questions about where on the road this encounter took place and so on, but we told him we were too unfamiliar with the road to give him that kind of information. He took my name, address, registration and so on and then we parted ways.
We eventually arrived in beautiful Corinna, which has no internet, wifi, TV and so on. On my previous visit to Corinna, I did quite a bit of urban sketching, which you can see my drawings by clicking on this link https://wordpress.com/post/theunfurlingartist.wordpress.com/5532 This time, I spent more time enjoying the natural surroundings of the Pieman River and went kayaking for the first time in my life.
The beautiful Pieman River, Corinna
Upon returning to civilization, we learned that the white ute with Queensland number plate, was actually a kidnapper! Apparently, he attempted to kidnap two children, but one escaped. It was reported that he had the kidnapped girl in the ute. Thankfully, the police did successfully capture him. Here are links to the incident. https://www.tasmaniatalks.com.au/newsroom/tasmanian-news/54934-attempted-child-abduction-sparks-hunt
On the second Sunday of the month, the Hobart Sketchers group meet at a chosen location and we sketch. Today we sketched in Franklin Square which is in the city of Hobart, about a block from the water of the Derwent River. We each sought a shady spot and drew.
I focused on the Elizabeth Street Post Office’s tower. I took this photo from where I was seated to do my drawing.
The drawing and painting that I did in 1 hour and 10 minutes. A large blob of ink unexpectedly came out on the right side of the dome, where I wanted to leave white paper, as this was where the light/sun was hitting it. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to capture the light on the dome.
The statue of Sir John Franklin, husband of Jane Franklin, is in the foreground. The power couple came to Tasmania in 1837, when Tasmania was called Van Diemen’s Land. They intended to bring culture and improvements to the penal colony. She established the Lady Franklin Gallery that today is again the home of the Tasmanian Art Society. The gallery has had a bumpy ride and even served as an apple storage shed for a period of time. It is a Greek style building that looks a little out of place in the Hobart suburbs. An ABC reporter asked and answered the question Why there’s a Greek-style building at the back of Lenah Valley? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-17/history-of-lenah-valleys-greek-style-lady-franklin-gallery/9054468 tm
A front view of Sir John Franklin. I like the way the photograph has captured and frozen the water spray.
I love wandering on our mountain, Mt Wellington/kunanyi in Hobart, Tasmania. It’s always different and so inspiring. This time I actually saw two animals. We had to stop the car to let the cutest little echidna cross the road, and on the track, a padymelon stopped us in our tracks.
a padymelon on kunanyi
The Organ Pipe track to the kunanyi’s organ pipes.
on our way down the mountain we had to keep an eye on our step
The organ pipes look quite different close up. They are very dramatic. There were several rock climbers climbing the organ pipes. We encountered some climbers on our way down and asked them how their climb was? They answered that it was awesome. They were absolutely beaming with happiness. Here’s a link for more information about climbing the organ pipes on kunanyi. kunanyi https://www.wellingtonpark.org.au/rock-climbing/
the majestic organ pipes close up
the organ pipes viewed from Sandy Bay, Hobart
organ pipes view from the kunanyi track
I found this fern striking. It’s one plant with different coloured frons. It reminded me of the punnet of lettuce seedlings I recently purchased.
multi-coloured fern
multi-coloured lettuce
We passed by moss covered boulders
striking moss covered boulders on kunanyi
it’s not the season for waratahs to be flowering but there were a few strange looking flowers around. I don’t know if this is the remnants of a former full waratah flower?
As usual, on the way up the mountain, the lichen on the rocks totally inspired me.
I love the green and black lichen
A limited pallet of lichen
This one looks like an outer space scene to me.
such a fabulous set of lichen!
I would love to paint a section of the lichen on a large piece of paper. I think that they are so awesome. I LOVE the patterns. It certainly resembles Aboriginal dot painting to me. But, first I want to paint this picture that I’ve drawn up about three months ago. It’s a continuation of my Bunk beds series. Limited edition prints of “Bunk beds” are available at https://pjpaintings.com/collections/wombats/products/copy-of-sleepy-head-series-bunk-beds-wombat-watercolour.
A wombat family relaxing under the shade of a gum tree – This painting is titled “Bunk beds”
extending the “Bunkbeds” series with “Bunk bed trio”. I’m not sure about what to title this picture? I’d love to hear your suggestions.
Thanks for visiting. I hope that COVID is under control where you are living so that you are able to enjoy the nature around you. Take care, from Patricia (PJ).
Well, to be more exact, Arthur Circus, located in Battery Point, Tasmania. This is where today’s urban sketch-meet took place. It was so peaceful and quiet sketching under the shady trees. Even visitors that came through with their children to use the swings, were telling them to speak quietly. It was like they were entering a library zone. It was quite surreal really.
I drew two cottages located in Arthur Circus.
my first drawing of the day – a heritage listed cottage at Arthur Circus
photo of the cottage I drew
For over 100 years, the crowded working-class cottages in Arthur Circus housed large families whose livelihoods were reliant on the waterfront. Each cottage is now valued over $1,000,000. Battery Point is a postcode held in high esteem, close to the city, waterfront, and in such a quaint, well-kept, prestigious, historical suburb of Hobart, Tasmania. https://www.discovertasmania.com.au/about/articles/battery-point
One of the quaint cottages surrounding the green space of Arthur Circus
Battery Point derived its name from the presence of a battery of cannons placed around the shoreline to protect the Hobart coastline. The cottages surrounded the village green of Arthur Circus, where children used to gather in the 1930s to play marbles. The cottages were built for officers of the garrison. When they were originally built in the 1800s, they probably consisted of just two main rooms.
Houses are built around the green space of Arthur Circus
Arthur Circus is reportedly the only street named “Circus” in Australia. Given the shape of the street, one would think it would have been named Arthur Circle. But, in fact, “Circus” is an appropriate name for this special place because apparently “circus”, in Latin means “circle”, a round open space at a street junction. Who knows, maybe a clown or two visited the grassy area to add to the festivities and fun of the birthday parties hosted there. Piccadilly Circus in London is a busy meeting place, and Arthur Circus seems to serve much the same purpose, especially with urban sketchers as many, many artists paint these cute cottages.
My second drawing of the day, #47 Arthur Circus, Battery Point.
I even drew in part of a car! Unusual for me because I avoid even attempting to draw cars.
A photo of #47 Arthur Circus. This house has a unusual roof. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another like it.
The house and car I drew from a standing position. I drew the first one while sitting on the grass.
The Unfurling Artist: journalising creative journeying 