Some pages from my sketchbook….
The first are of the Incinerator Gallery in Moonee Ponds. You can tell by the name that originally it was an incinerator. It is a special because it was designed by Walter Burley Griffin. Many will know that he designed Canberra, the capital city of Australia, so it is always a surprise to know that he designed humble buildings like incinerators. I recently found out that the one near me is not the only one of his in Australia.
It has strong lines and is a fabulous mix of flat planes and sharp angles, simple surfaces and intricate detail. It was some of those contrasts that I was attempting to capture in my sketches.
I first went down there with coloured pencils.
I liked what I did, but felt that it lacked spontaneity. I was approached by a woman as I sat sketching. She asked me if I was there for the talk. I said no, knowing nothing about it. She went on to tell me that there was a free talk in the gallery about women artists in the Impressionist movement. I finished the sketch and went inside. It was a fascinating talk, and I have signed up for the rest in the series. 🙂
I went back another day (no talk this time!), just with my Lamy pen and tried to capture some of the detail. You can see how that pattern is found in the odd angles of the roofline, as well as on the chimney. To sketch the building I have to break it up into sections; the whole is difficult to put successfully on the page.
The next two are more examples of how I am finding it difficult to fit the whole onto the page — although, I hasten to add that the statue in the first sketch was never intended to be part of the garden area at the back. I did her first, and them wandered onto find the view of the trees. The face of the nymph makes me understand how much work I have to do on faces too!
As the notes on this North Melbourne page say, I thought I would have room for the whole of the terrace house. As I was drawing I realised that I was only going to fit in the top story and chimney. I think I need more guide lines in my initial setup. A little more time looking and comparing.
I drew these plants while standing in the sunshine in my garden. Each one is a simple line carried through the drawing. Compositionally the ivy geranium helps to give a horizontal movement and leads your eye from one page to the other.
I was very happy with this last sketch, created while sitting having coffee outside the Sun Theatre in Yarraville. As the notes say, I loved the contrast between the curved brickwork and the flat plane of the paper stencil of the lady shopping, the old and the new, the red of the bricks and the black/white of the stencil. I also really loved the homage to the shopping lady with her middle-aged spread!
Artistically I was trying to show the detail of the bricks without drawing every brick.
Anne Lawson Art 
6 replies on “My sketchbook — Yarraville, North Melbourne and the Incinerator”
Yarraville’s one of my old stomping grounds, so it’s fun to think that you’re capturing it!
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I’m impressed at what you can do with a Lamy! How synchronicitous you went to the Incinerator Gallery to sketch and ended up going to the talk and signing up for the series 🙂
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The shape of the door of the incinerator building and the top of the chimney put me forcibly in mind of a church! How fortuitous that you were able to catch the lecture series!
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Yes, me too! It’s hard to see the building as a functional incinerator.
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Delightful! It looks like you’re having fun.
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[…] The Incinerator Gallery had a call out for artists interested in exhibiting there. And I was. That was my plan. If I am to be serious about my art ~ and I do want to be ~ then the next step is to exhibit. It means that the work I am doing, that is coming out of my time on Flinders Island, has to be of a quality to exhibit. It has to be technically good as well as having that something that will capture an audience’s attention. […]
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