Food Glorious Food….& Flowers |

THURSDAY AUGUST 1 ’13

This week was a completely different sketch day from last week.

French pastries and gorgeous flowers were there to greet everyone when they arrived. Not a bit of perspective in sight.

Bread and lavender on one table and pasties and pineapple coloured hibiscus on the other. Everyone enjoys this and Christy was there to give a hand where needed.

Beautiful days again, so a walk down the hill was a quick breather before our next subject – Gelatissimo on the wharf.

Such delicious presentation of each exotic flavour. Great swirls of gelato heaped into tubs and decorated with rich chocolate, or fresh fruit or nuts to go with each.

Good thing they have thick glass display all-round.

You so want to take great scoops of it.

Sketchers chose various angles to capture the feeling of the display and while most sat or stood back, Pam stood right up close doing her vignettes of the displays, puzzled customers waiting behind to order, not realising.

You’ll see how those turned out above.

Then because we were doing all food today, we crossed the road to try a new very large and glossy Italian restaurant, Criniti’s.

This place is enormous. There were 3 restaurants here before this one opened.

Inside are tables as far as you can see, broken up with a black Lamborghini between tables, and some glorious red motorcycles at the far end. Very Italian.

Pizzas are made in front of you over by the big pizza oven.

Pasta and pastries are made in a glass fronted kitchen, a great sketch scene for us.

In fact our sketches are of gelato not pizza but we sure had a good time up to our necks in food.

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FRIDAY AUGUST 2 ’13

FRIDAY AUGUST 2, ’13

French pastries have a very uplifting effect on people when they arrive at the Studio. Building blocks do not.But it’s definitely upbeat today, and flowers bring even more chirrups of delight.Some of our sketchers began with watercolour this week and today the sketches were bright with colour using our two mediums – watercolours or watercolour pencils. Leonie sent hers as she was working from home.

Then of course it was Gelatissimo time at Manly wharf. Again the sketches are so yummy and for people who were previously shy about sketching in public, they barely noticed 1000 people off each ferry streaming in front of them. It’s all about the sketch.

Next it was Italian at Criniti’s. We took an outside table which was fine, as there was a major function booked for inside.

It was a Rugby League event it seemed, hence all those long tanned legs and black stilettos entering the event. The girlfriends one assumes. We’re all fascinated.

Now that would be a fun sketch.

Meantime our sketchers continued with the work of adding colour to their gelato ones and a couple did some cute cafe sketches while at the table.

A very tasty pizza was shared and a lamb salad went down happily as well.

A very good day indeed.

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SATURDAY AUGUST 3 ’13

It was a lovely morning, nice and sunny in the Erin Hill studios…But when we got down to Gelatissimo , we were all pretty cold!

Still, the beautiful colours of the gelato bar got us inspired and we were off…huddled in nooks and crannies to stay warm. Fiona painted the back of a woman ordering ice cream and actually managed to show that the woman was cold and shivering!

Those curves of the gelato bar are tricky! This wasn’t like our usual “vase” sketching, where the top curve echoes the base…We had a bit of perspective thrown into the mix here, and really had to focus on “sketching what is there, rather than what we think is there.”

We also learnt to leave some room for figures coming into our sketch…its all too easy to draw them over our base sketch and find that they look like semi transparent people with the background lines going right through them.

At one stage a group of young girls stopped to look at our sketches, bright eyed and open mouthed…and got a bit of free sketching advice from Jan.

Then to Crinitis and all tucked in at a table under the curved ceiling. For some, the temptation of pizza proved stronger than the desire to sketch…but only temporarily…once the food was gone (and the class was pretty much finished) everyone got straight back into it, even if this did mean some sketchbooks may forever more smell like pizza!

Some sketched the bikes on the back wall and others the sketchers sketching the bikes!

Well, my first day teaching the group and I absolutely loved it…what better way to spend a Saturday than sketching yummy food with a wonderful group of ladies followed by….. pizza!

…..and even nicer when the girls smiled and told me that I’d passed the test…