One year after leaving

It’s been a year since we left London. Few months of travel and visiting family; six months of adjusting to being back in Melbourne and enjoying catching up with the old friends; another period of adjustment as we moved to Bendigo four months ago.


Around our second month in Bendigo I reached my lowest point: feeling jaded by constant changes, socially inept, resistant to exploring new place and making new friends. I was missing London: my amazing, talented, beautiful friends; the museums, art galleries and theatres; knowing that this vast, old, vibrant city will always be full of surprises to stumble upon. Without me noticing, London seeped into my bones. The images come unexpected, bright and precious – riding a bus across the heath, walking along Thames past the colourful sea of tourists, drinking tea at the friend’s kitchen table. They hit me with the full force of longing and I miss London with my whole body.

However, two months ago there weren’t any fairy godmothers around to wave a wand and magically whisk me back to my old life in London. Days kept on passing, new friends were met, new routines were established, new places were discovered. Spring came bringing gorgeous blue skies, explosion of flowers, abundance of bees and birds. I love Australia – I feel more relaxed and confident here. It feels right to be at this place at this time – providence brought us here to learn what we need to learn. For now I wish for stability, for staying in one place, for using the energy for the inner-transformation instead of the physical journeys. The future will unfold itself in all its intricacy and beauty and take me where I meant to be.

Excuses for disappearing

Royal Observatory, Greenwich, UK
Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolour on Daler-Rowney watercolour postcard

This was my first outdoor sketch with my my watercolour set. Then for the few weeks I mostly had time to do small quick pen sketches between all the other responsibilities and tasks: both kids came down with scarlatina (at different times); my mum came to visit; my husband and I finished renovating the house and put it on the market. At that point I and the kids started to spend most of the time outside the house as it was the easiest way for me to keep the house tidy and spotlessly clean. We found a buyer really quickly, but he pulled out after one week, so the house went back on the market. There is a new buyer and fingers-crossed that the sale will go through without any hiccups as we are leaving London to move to Australia in two months. There will be a bit of travel around England and maybe Europe before our departure in November, so my blogging may continue to suffer. On the other hand I may have photos and sketches of our travels to share.

Quick sketches

It used to be so easy to justify not drawing: not enough time, no right materials handy, too tired, nothing interesting caught my eye, etc. However with every sketch, no matter how small, I find it harder and harder to believe the truthfulness of my own excuses.

Every little sketch is a testament to the fact that I can find time and energy for daily sketching and after months of almost daily practice I see wonderful interesting images ready to be captured on paper everywhere.

Being ready for the opportunities leads to rejoicing and using the unexpected gifts of sketching time to record my daily life.

All sketches were done in hand*book sketchbook (3½" × 5½", Portrait ) with Faber Castell PITT Artists Pen.

Spread too thin?

Previous week was my daughter’s last week at the kindergarten and after weeks of procrastinating and putting it off I realised at the last chance that I want to make the personal presents for the teacher and her assistant. I left it too late, but managed to make a simple Chinese knot necklace and beaded crochet brooch just in time to wrap them up on the morning of the last day. My daughter made lovely cards and was very proud to be able to give gifts to the adults, who meant so much to her for the past couple of years.

I managed to do one decent sketch in the whole week (the one above) and yet also faced the fact that I miss making things by hand. I miss looking through my threads, beads, fabrics; touching them; choosing the combinations that go well together; finding or figuring out a suitable design and finally making something useful. I love sketching as it compels me to slow down and notice the beauty and goodness around me. My sketchbooks provide me with a record of my life – even a simplest of sketches can trigger the flood of memories. Inside my head I have a vision of the watercolour paintings I want to be able to create one day to share the beauty I see in the world. I keep on wondering if knitting, felting, crochet, embroidery, sewing are just distractions from painting – another way for me to procrastinate instead of tackling the next step towards finding my own style, mastering the watercolour medium, finally creating a painting – or if improving my skills in one of these crafts will benefit my art skill set as well. Can I afford to give myself time for pursuing these crafts or should I narrow my focus to painting only?

Off on holiday

I’m off to the Isle of Wight for one-week holiday with my family. From the travel brochure it looks to be a gorgeous place with something interesting for each one of us. I’m mostly looking forward to doing some painting. Recently huge chunks of my time were being used up for the house renovations in the preparation for the sale before the move to Australia. This meant that I wasn’t able to get out on my own to sketch the London’s sights. I often struggle with being flexible and accepting changes to the routine and this time I was finding it specially frustrating, as I want to create a memento for myself of my time in London and also to practice outdoor sketching for the future travels. Where there’s a will there’s a way. A kind (and observant) friend offered to babysit the youngest allowing me to do few drawings at the Charlton House.

The simple act of sketching for an hour lifted my mood and made me more determine to figure out a way to sketch while travelling with my family. Hopefully I’ll have some drawings to share with you on my return.

Inspired to sketch outside

I admired the sketches people did during their travels and earned to be brave enough to pull out my sketchbook in public to record some of the places I find beautiful, interesting or memorable. Since I never done much drawing of the architectural subjects the thought of attempting to accurately sketch all the complexities of the outside world while being looked at was overwhelming.

I started slowly by doing short sketches on the outings with my family and since my daughter often joined me I felt less concerned about what others may think about my work, as most people seemed to concentrate on the cuteness of the two of us drawing together than on whatever we produced.

I had some unexpected open conversations with people from the simple one with the employee at INTECH admiring the view I was sketching and sharing that she can see it from her office window, which made her very happy to go to work everyday; to a long and heartfelt one with the friend showing me his mom’s watercolour drawings, which she made during her visit to help out with the newborn despite never painting before in her life, and what these paintings meant to him now that she passed away. The comments people make seem to say much more about them than about my skill level or myself as a person.

Whenever I saw someone sketching outside I paid attention to the reaction of others and noticed that the sketchers aren’t always as conspicuous as I think – most people, at least in London, seem to be too busy with their own lives to pay too much attention to others.

The last push to sketching of the architectural subjects was reading David Gentleman’s “London, You’re Beautiful: An Artist Year”. In this book David Gentleman included some very quick simple sketches alongside more complex ones. All of them expressed his love for London and showed me that sometimes simplifying and trying to catch the initial impression is all that is needed. It is so easy to get caught up in trying to achieve a high level of life-like rendering and totally loose the sight of the purpose behind the sketch to preserve the memory of the place and my feelings towards it. Looking at his sketches made me want to pack my sketchbook & pen and head out outside to explore London via drawing. So whenever there is an opportunity I grab my sketching kit and head outside to capture some of the London’s sights in my last few months here.

“Drawing things makes them seem more real and makes me feel more alive. It also makes me pin down and remember things – landscapes, season, weather, occasions, incidents, people – that would otherwise have melted from my memory.”
― David Gentleman, London, You’re Beautiful: An Artist’s Year

Perfect Celebration

Yesterday was a year since I started drawing everyday.  I debated about how I should celebrate this tiny achievement and at the end, discarding some of the more grandiose schemes, headed to the Greenwich park to do some outdoor sketching.  The mild spring day seemed to be ideal for it.  The park was filled with joggers, dog walkers, kids and tourists.  I settled on making a quick sketch of the Royal Observatory to loosen up.  There was someone, not too far from me, practicing classical singing.  Soon all the other outside noises and inside chatter in my head disappeared leaving only the song soaring upwards and my hand moving the pen on paper.  I added some colour to the sketch; then feeling that this serene magical experience was perfect and any further sketching or gallery visiting would only detract from it, I went back home.