This time a cloudy day was forecast with strong winds. It can be cold there out on the island, and although the weather has been perfect, we are well on into the autumn. In the event, it was yet another perfect day and we were stripping off layers.

I wanted to sketch this hugely complicated crane that I haven’t tried before. It is always trickier than you think, sketching cranes. They are so very tall. You have to anchor them on the ground somehow, then you run out of page when you go upwards. This crane is just gorgeous where that rectangular thing is, and next time I shall attempt to draw a detail of that area. As it was I went off the page at the top, and across onto the other page once I got the rope-thing hanging down. So I continued to add more buildings coming closer to me, able only to fudge the perspective and the proportion because it was so unplanned. Nevertheless I quite like it.

Yesterday was Anzac Day, a public holiday in Australia and New Zealand. There is a huge parade through the city, but instead we went to Cockatoo Island again. Any opportunity……

These pages in my Stillman & Birn sketchbook have been pre-prepared with collage for ages. Even since I came back from Huskisson, and so long that I can’t quite remember if I used Matt Medium of Matt Gel Medium. I used a variety of torn pieces of Japanese papers. They were all cream or white, some with metallic bits through them, others plain or with various other bits through them. When I had stuck them down and they were dry, I threw some watercolour on them.

I was always planning to use them at Cockatoo Island, so I used the yellow ochre on them both, thinking of the sandstone there. One I used a dusky pink as well, and the other I mixed a grey blue from ultramarine and burnt umber.

It was a perfect autumn day. Chilly at 9:45 when I arrived, but by mid afternoon we were looking for a patch of shade. Another glorious day on Sydney Harbour.

Tone is so important to me, and that is probably one of the reasons  I don’t work particularly fast, because I am refining the differences in the tones. So I had to find something to sketch with strong tonal differences.

When I got this one home I wasn’t particularly happy with the colour, so I actually got up in the night to alter it, because I couldn’t get back to sleep for thinking about it.  What did I do? I lightened the two sunny yellow areas using sfumato. I lifted off the colour of the front wall to a pale raw umber, as I thought it was muddy. In the morning I glazed very watery ultramarine over the front wall and the other shadow areas. Finished.

Now I am happy with it. If time permitted (which it won’t) I would quite like to do a 12″  square acrylic from it for the Pyrmont Art Prize.

Strangely enough I painted one from here for the Glebe Art Prize, though it sold before that and never made it to the exhibition.  It is from a totally different angle, but do you recognise with area it comes from? It’s called Up Up and Away, partly because of the repeating upward thrust of the roofline, but mainly because it was the rear of the Flight Centre building at the time.

At Easter I made a largish Coptic bound sketchbook for each of us, using my own paste paper for the covers, and Canaletto watercolour paper for the signatures. Then I made an ox plough book for BB from Fabriano Hot Press paper, using some Balinese fabric I had turned into book cloth. I had previously made a reverse piano hinge book from this book cloth and I found there was enough left to make a book for BB too.

We are going to Bali in June and I can’t wait. This will be my twelfth visit to Bali and I am looking forward to seeing my friends there. It will be a bit of an adventure though, because we are going to Lovina Beach, up on the north coast where I haven’t been since the1980s. We are staying at Rambutan Boutique Hotel. If you look at the photos on Tripadvisor, you will see that there is enough to sketch without leaving the gardens. It’s at Kalibukbuk. Don’t you love the name of the place?

After a few days there we go to Ubud, my second home, and because Ubud Village Hotel is full we are staying somewhere else. That will be a change for me. I have always stayed there since it opened but they are renovating right now.

Then in late August we are going for a longer trip to Europe. Starting in Switzerland, then spending most of the time in Italy and finishing in Barcelona.

Currently I am working on my Indonesian language skills, then after that trip I have to brush up my Italian. As far as getting in shape for sketching, I am planning to sketch some of the Balinese things around my house, starting now.

I went to my first sketchcrawl, the 20th, in 2008. That was when I met Liz and Alissa, and we have been sketching together ever since. I have only missed two or three sketchcrawls because of sickness and a business commitment. I hate to miss the sketchcrawl.

We had decided to have an inside venue after being rained on at two recent Urban Sketchers events. As it was, the weather was perfect and we were stuck inside. In the Powerhouse Museum there is so much to sketch, and as usual I gravitate towards the machines.

One sketch down and we needed a coffee. We went to the new coffee shop by the entrance and had a look at our sketches in a good light. It’s dark in the museum.

Back inside, and being printmakers we wanted to sketch the printing press. Very complicated, looking up from below made it worse. Took a break in the middle of that sketch to catch up with all the sketchcrawl people and look at sketches. Probably the biggest sketchcrawl in Sydney yet….over 50 people. And we started with three of us in 2008.

Lunch in the courtyard cafe downstairs, talking about sketching and about Barcelona, then back to finish the press.

No, I’m not gay, but I’m for more happiness in the world, so I am for gay marriage and rainbow crossings.

Last night a guerrilla movement has sprung up all over the inner west of Sydney, and other places too, and people are chalking rainbow crossings everywhere. Their motto is ‘Dont get angry, get chalking’. They even have their own Facebook page. DIY Rainbow Crossings.

Port Macquarie (a few hours north of Sydney) is sold out of coloured chalks. There is a rainbow crossing in Ballarat in Victoria and even an international one in Phoenix Arizona.
Well, at risk of sounding like the lightbulb joke, I think it’s faaaaaabulous!