Category Archives: coloured pencil impressionism

Gion Night

Electric lights, illuminated signage and red Japanese lanterns glowing from a Gion Higashi side-street, together create a nocturnal abstract.

“Gion Night” (above) is my third consecutive drawing of soft-focus Kyoto. “Gion Night” is the most abstract of the three, but if you know the idea began with a side-street or alley-way, you can kind of see it.

The previous two drawings are “Alone in Kyoto” and “Downtown“.

“Alone in Kyoto” Neocolor II and coloured pencils. 23.5 x 28.5 cm. April 2024.

“Alone in Kyoto” (above) was drawn after “Downtown” (below). Each drawing is more pared back than the previous one, with incrementally decreasing detail.

“Downtown” Neocolor II and coloured pencils. 30 x 21 cm, drawn in March 2024.

These three drawings have been questioning, challenging, frustrating and fulfilling in turn for me as I have sought out an impressionistic essence of evening Kyoto.

Alone in Kyoto

Last time I traveled to Kyoto I was not in a good mood during my first evening there. No doubt I was worn out from lack of sleep and two long-haul flights. I felt that I had made a mistake in coming back. I trudged around for a while in a black mood then gave up on finding inspiration and returned to my hotel room.

Looking back at my (very few) photo images from that first evening, I wondered if I could communicate my sense of doubt in a drawing. In my journal I had written “worst first night ever“, and that I was fluctuating between despair and resignation.

Well, there can be a kind of dark beauty in introspection – perhaps.

Downtown

On my way to Lawson to buy takeaway dinner one evening in Kyoto, a marching band of lights caught my attention. It was headed up by blue fairy lights. A Japanese lantern fell in behind. To the rear, neon signs and street lamps formed an abstract cohort, dazzling and reflecting all the way down to Shijo-dori. What a colourful cacophony. I thought there might be a drawing in it so I took a few photos.

This is the source photo for the drawing “Downtown”.

During the last fortnight as I worked on my drawing, Petula Clark’s song “Downtown” (1964) popped into my head. The song begins…

When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go downtown
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know, downtown

Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?
The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares

So go downtown
Things will be great when you're downtown
No finer place for sure, downtown
Everything's waiting for you.

Kyoto Twilight

It was November 2005. Having used a film camera for decades, this was my first trip to Japan with a digital camera…a Nikon D70 if I remember correctly.

I wandered around Pontocho in Kyoto just as the light was morphing from daylight into evening – which is my favourite time. Lanterns and neon lights were popping on as the sky, not to be outdone, radiated its own quiet glow. I captured the moment with my new camera.

Back in 2006 I used the same source photo for another drawing which I called “Illuminating Dusk”. Because I have always loved this composition, I wanted to have another go at it in 2024.

The main lantern, incidentally, has been gone for years so if you go to Kyoto you will never see this scene. I suppose that makes this drawing a little bit of history.

“Illuminating Dusk”, coloured pencils, 36 x 55.5 cm. Drawn in 2006.

My friend, Hiroo Inoue, explained about the lantern in a letter in 2006 after I showed him the drawing I’d made. He wrote, “The kanji letters say DAI TOMI RYO, literal meaning is Great Wealth Ryo Ryo. This has various meanings like monetary unit in olden times and it also means “both”. Probably Dai Tomi Ryo is the name of a Japanese restaurant. During summer time those Japanese restaurants along side of Kamogawa river, they stretch verandahs over the river. They place mats on the extended verandahs where you enjoy the sound of river flow, also enjoy Japanese dishes. Dai Tomi Ryo can offer such services during summer season”.

Rest in Peace, Hiroo-san.

Afterword: A friend commented that she thought I was brave to work twice from the same photo. I explained it this way; I saw Kyoto with fresh wide-open eyes in my early trips so I photographed things I wouldn’t even “see” when I became more familiar with the place. Now I see these early images as treasure. I bring an evolved pencil technique to the old compositions which make the finished new drawings completely different to the original drawings.

Tapestry

At the upper section of Araluen Botanic Park in Perth’s hills are the rose gardens. Rose and salvia bushes are framed by a backdrop of both native eucalyptus and introduced deciduous trees – the latter in autumn leaf.

This drawing changes depending on your viewing distance from it. It comes together from across a room so I invite you to move back from your screen to create a little distance between you and it.

“Tapestry” is in the same genre as these two below; my aim in each of them is to suggest a dreamy atmosphere of space and light in nature.

“Transcendence” coloured pencil drawing, 28 x 41 cm. drawn in 2022.

and…

“Day Trip to Giverny” a drawing made after my visit to Monet’s garden. 33 x 42 cm. Drawn in 2018.

“Day Trip to Giverny” (2018) is a favourite of my drawings and it hangs on my bedroom wall. It gave me courage to attempt “Tapestry” and reassured me when I doubted my ability to make this latest drawing work.

A Walk in Miyagawa

With the latest art exhibition “Home & Heart – local love stories” behind me, I decide to indulge myself with a Kyoto drawing – just for the sheer love of it.

Miyagawa is one of Kyoto’s five geisha districts. I was last there in November 2019 and this drawing is from a photo I took during that trip.

I like spending time in Miyagawa as it is quiet. Just ten minutes’ walk north, the better-known geisha district of Gion is heaving with tourists eagerly (and sometimes brutally) trying to intercept maiko and geiko (geisha) for photos.

Below are three older drawings from Miyagawa; each portrays a rear view. I love drawing the kimono ensemble from behind, while pictorially, a retreating figure guides the viewer into the scene.

“Last Night I Dreamed of Kyoto” is the same street on the same night but treated differently. Drawn in 2021.

“Surprise!” – two maiko were ambushed by a group of cameramen as they turned a corner. Drawn in 2011.

“Step by Step” – a young maiko and an old lady represent the passage of time. Drawn in 2014.

Timeless Miyagawa – as I draw the scene, so I am also drawn in.

Home & Heart – local love stories

When the world closed down to travel in 2020, my mission became to find my muse at home. I set out to rediscover my neighbourhood, to open up my mental borders and ‘travel’ here.

“Our Place” Neocolor II and Luminance. 26 x 30.6 cm. March 2022

During my home wanderings – in all seasons – I came to appreciate our gorgeous birds living in this small corner of Western Australia. (They are easily missed if one isn’t tuned into them.) As my concentration on both my Fremantle neighbourhood and local birds deepened, I hardly minded that I couldn’t travel any more.

“The Prettiest Star” coloured pencils, 23 x 23 cm. September 2022

Apart from Fremantle, other places represented in this exhibition are Donnelly River, Araluen Botanic Park, Matilda Bay, Point Walter, Karnup and The Berry Farm in Margaret River.

“Transcendence” coloured pencil drawing, 28 x 41 cm.

In 2023 we may travel again; “Home & Heart – local love stories” is my visual response to when we couldn’t. In the last couple of years I felt gratitude and wonder as our unique local landscapes, colours, quality of light, and life, gently reminded me of their presence and solace.

“Iridescent Morning” 25.5 x 28.5 cm. September 2021

I am delighted to be showing my coloured pencil drawings alongside sculptures by my friend and fellow artist, Robyn Varpins. This will be our fifth exhibition together.

“Contemplating Dawn” clay, under-glaze, oil paint

Robyn Varpins writes – “I was rather pleased to not be able to travel due to Covid as I have always enjoyed being home more than anywhere else. I love this place.

“My Companion” clay, under-glaze, oil paint.

Our title really expresses how I feel. I nestled into my home and delved deeply into what it is that makes me love this place so much. It was a joy to “seek the sacred in the mundane” and notice anew the beauty all around me. It was a journey inward to explore my perceptions and attitudes towards “Home”.

“Looking for Birds” clay, under-glaze, oil paint.

I investigated our rich and varied connection to Nature, particularly the quiet space of our back yards and gardens. That private oasis is where one can fully be at ease and nourished by simply Being. I enjoyed becoming one with the garden (where does the garden end and I begin?) Here one may keenly appreciate our treasured native birds, as well as the friendship and love of the animals in our lives.

“Listening to the Dawn Chorus” clay, under-glaze, oil paint.

It took some time to translate the theme into clay forms that expressed my felt experience of loving this place. Each sculpture expresses one small corner of this huge theme. I really enjoyed adding oil paint to many of my clay pieces, as the rich colour makes them more exuberant and alive.”

This is just a taster. Please join us between 20 and 30 April at EARLYWORK to see our exhibition. We welcome you!

All the drawings destined for the exhibition can be seen here

Click here to listen to a 37 minute interview with Robyn and myself about our art exhibition.

Ready to Fly

I am a bit obsessed with our Rainbow Container Sculpture in East Fremantle. How the colours do change depending on time of day and atmospherics. My newest drawing “Ready to Fly” shows the sculpture on a fiercely clear autumn day. Early morning sun and fresh air result in THE SHOCK OF THE BRIGHT.

How does a seagull in the foreground compete with such forceful colours behind? It flaps its wings and manages to grab our attention with an upward thrust. Off you go.

In my two previous rainbow sculpture drawings “All is Calm” and “Colour My World” there is smoke in the air due to prescribed fire hazard-reduction burns. The colours of the sculpture are considerably muted by hazy atmospherics.

The sculpture in reality is absolutely hard-edge; made from shipping containers. But I don’t want to draw hard-edged containers which is why I employ an accommodating bird to focus on. (How often I wait in vain for one to show up!)

Now that I have drawn the sculpture so many times (four pictures but one didn’t survive) I feel positively drawn to it . When I see it in the distance, usually from a car, I feel a connection thanks to all the hours I have spent observing and rendering it in various lights. As to the birds, they sooth my soul.

All is Calm

The sun sinks, casting its last rays on East Fremantle’s “Rainbow” sea container sculpture. In the foreground a crested tern, already in shadow, rests on a pole at North Fremantle foreshore. At the first touch of an autumn dusk all is calm, all is bright.

“All is Calm” is a drawing featuring the rainbow sculpture – a much loved piece of public art in my neighbourhood. I took the source photograph for this drawing during the month of April 2022.

Below are some of the photos I’ve taken over the past year of the rainbow sculpture.

Transcendence

A few weeks ago I published a post on a drawing called “Celestial Forest“. I loved working on the drawing so much that when I finished it I knew I had to make a considerably larger version for my April 2023 exhibition.

“Celestial Forest” had been composed from the left side of a photo I had taken at Donnelly River in June. For “Transcendence” I worked from the whole photo.

“Transcendence” reminds me of Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionist painting “Blue Poles”. However in my abstract realist drawing the verticals are (thankfully) not poles, but living trees.

As I stood in that patch of forest I was so moved by the sunlight filtering through the trees that it felt like a divine experience… as if I were inside a prayer. The interplay of light, wet leaves and branches became a kind of moving leadlight.

What was a word to describe this? It was Matthew who came up with my title. “Transcendence”, he said, and I knew that he was right.

The original drawing, “Celestial Forest” 26 x 26 cm. July 2022

I did not want to compare “Transcendence” with “Celestial Forest” so I waited until the latter had gone to its new home before putting final touches on the former.

Julie Podstolski – Abstract Realism

A site to share my drawings, paintings, photographs and thoughts.

Category Archives: coloured pencil impressionism