While I was staying down in Katherine I had the chance to sketch two kelpies, they were great to draw because of their long gangly legs and chiseled facial features….

I’ve recently moved back to Darwin from Katherine and was informed by my friends at DVAA that a life drawing group was starting up at the Art Space in Winnellie. We had our first session on Sunday, it was soooo good to get back into drawing again after a five month hiatus! If you are interested in coming along please contact the Darwin Visual Arts Association via their website to get the details.

Here are some of my drawings….

For the warm up exercises I usually draw multiple poses one on top of the other, wiping away the layers underneath as I go. These sketcheswere all done on the one sheet of butcher’s paper and drawn “blind”, that is, without looking at the paper at all, just looking at the model.

These drawings are five, ten and fifteen minute sketches, with some “blind” sketches combined with studies exploring the foreshortening of the face in the prone position. On the right is a more detailed drawing of a seated pose (this is the fifteen minute sketch).

This is a close up of the model’s face from one of the fifteen minute sketches.

This is one of the twenty minute poses with the model in a comfortable rest position. The beauty of using willow charcoal on butchers paper is the ease with which corrections can be made to the drawing. All of these drawings are started using a long paintbrush to measure angles and proportions, more detail and tone is added once these guidelines are in place.

This is a close up of the drawing of the model’s face, usually I squint whilst observing the model in order to see the large areas of tone clearly, then gently build up the features of the face using layers of charcoal.

We’ve just spent the long weekend down in Augusta camping at Flinder’s Bay, it is a quaint little town with a pub overlooking a river running into the sea.  It also happened to be the weekend of the annual Augusta River Festival.  We saw some amazing acrobatics put on by some kids that had been doing workshops over the school holiday break.  There  was a stage for the band with a great view overlooking the river and the weather was perfect.

I just realised I’ve inserted these posts out of order….oopsy!  Well I am still new to this blog thing, not sure how everything works.  We went camping for NYE down near Albany at a very special place called Waychinicup National Park.  I had a good three days of wondering around by myself and sketching and photgraphing the landscape, lots of granite, water and coastal vegetation to look at, oh and the swimming wasn’t too bad either!

Well, I’ve been busy capturing some of the day to day scenes around where I live.  Usual haunts include pubs and South Beach.

I’ve just gotten back (well it was a couple of weeks ago) from my first ever trip to Bali.  It was beautiful over there, we stayed in Seminyak in a three bedroom villa with our own private pool, it was heaven!

Here are some sketches I did of our family’s two dogs, they are tan and white Tenterfield terriers and they are sisters.  My sister and I bought them because they were born the day after her birthday….and of course they were gorgeous as puppies and still are now, even as oldies!

SAMMY

WINNIE

One place I’ve always wanted to go is India and back in December I had the opportunity to go on a yoga trip to Rishikesh, in the foothills of the Himalayas.  It was an amazing experience, the landscape up there was just stunning.  I kept a sketchbook on my travels, here is a snippet….

Recent Nudes: life drawings by elizabeth martin

Thank you to all the beautiful people who came along to the opening of my exhibition ‘Recent Nudes: life drawings by elizabeth martin’ at Earlywork Gallery, South Fremantle.  Around 80 people braved the squalling Freo weather to mingle, have some nibbles and a glass of wine.  The exhibition is open everyday until Monday 8th August at Shop 9, 330 South Fremantle.

As my blog is brand spanking new I thought I’d add some of the photos from the exhibition opening and some pics of the hanging process beforehand…I like to see process shots, whether it be of a sunset, a painting or a room makeover!

The "before" shot

The moving of the wall - this gallery space has been ingeniously designed

All the works were laid on the floor and the overall structure of the show was decided upon

Getting ready to hang, it really is a two person job!

Ah, nothing beats teamwork!

Nearly done....

I ordered some gorgeous flowers from the Fremantle Flower Factory, they have all opened and are filling the gallery space with a wonderful perfume.

The doors are opened!

Some good friends having a look

Getting a little busy

Old friends catching up

The speeches went really well, thank you to Dimity for her wonderful MC skills and a big thank you to Ian De Souza for officially opening the show.