Sketching in Toowoomba

This last weekend, the Brisbane City Sketchers went to Toowoomba for the whole weekend.  My good friend Brett Danvers organised the whole thing and it was a fabulous weekend.

Toowoomba's colonial history traces back to 1816 when English botanist and explorer Allan Cunningham arrived in Australia from Brazil and in June 1827 discovered 4 million acres (16,000 km²) of rich farming and grazing land, which became known as the Darling Downs, bordered on the east by the Great Dividing Range.

The city is full of fabulous historic buildings, gardens everywhere.  The Toowoomba railway station opened in 1867 and the magnificent building still stands.  There are more than 150 public parks and gardens in Toowoomba. 

 SATURDAY

The Toowoomba Japanese Garden is the largest, most complex and traditionally designed Japanese Garden in Australia. It was named Ju Raku En by the designer - roughly translated it means long life and happiness in a public garden.

 

 Christs Church in Margaret Street

It is now Quest Hotel Apartments.

Saturday night was night sketching.  What fun. Four of us settled in on the corner of Ruthven and Margaret Streets and sketched the Gelatisimo cafe

This one is done in Copic markers

SUNDAY

No 5 Godsall Street

Cleveland Lighthouse and Restaurant.

The lighthouse was built in 1864 by the Queensland Government. It lit up Cleveland Point until it was replaced in 1975 by the concrete light. It is a hexagonal wooden lighthouse about 12m (38ft) tall. It is made of painted weatherboards attached to a timber frame.  The light used kerosene until 1934 when it was converted to electricity.

The lighthouse was originally located on the north east tip of Cleveland Point. In  1975, a new concrete light was built and the old lighthouse was moved to the western shore of the point, about 140m south of its original location. In 2009, the concrete light was removed.

In the 1860s, small farming settlements along the south coast of Moreton Bay, including at Cleveland, Victoria Point, Redland Bay and along the Logan and Albert Rivers relied on small ships (coastal steamers) for transport.
Travel by ship could be dangerous as the mudflats and sandbanks in Moreton Bay move and there are rocks. The bay is also very tidal, which meant it gets very shallow, especially close to shore.

Cleveland Point was a dangerous spot. Before the lighthouse was built, people living in Cleveland put up small lights to make sure the ships didn’t run aground. These small lights kept getting damaged, and eventually the Queensland Government decided to build a permanent light.

The Lighthouse Restaurant is a busy place.  We had fish and chips for lunch.  I wasn't overly thrilled with them, they were very dry.

  Pen and ink sketch in my A4 sketchbook

Watercolour added.  We were sketching with our eyes over the bay as a huge storm was forecast.

Luckily for us the storm held off for the two and a half hours we were sketching.  Lunchtime brought the downpour.

Sketching Kurilpa Bridge Brisbane City

The name KURILPA reflects the Australian Aboriginal word for the South Brisbane and West End area, and means "place for water rats".
The bridge cost $63million to build and is the world’s largest hybrid tensegrity bridge. Only the horizontal spars conform to tensegrity principles. The Kurilpa Bridge is a multiple-mast, cable-stay structure based on principles of tensegrity producing a synergy between balanced tension and compression components to create a light structure which is incredibly strong.

 

A4 sketchbook bamboo dip pen and ink.

 

Fabulous Morning with the Brisbane City Sketchers

Vulture Street Brisbane

Vulture Street is a very old street in South Brisbane with some wonderful old houses along it as well as a wonderful Syrian church and the old Royal Queensland blind Association Building.  My friend and i opted for a row of buildings cut into the hill.  Leslie chose to sketch one on the top and I one on the lower road.

The old rusted corrugated iron roofs caught my attention.  This was definitely a challenge for me to draw but I did enjoy it.  I even put the car in.

 

Sketching with the Brisbane City Sketchers

Spring Hill Baths were designed by Thomas Kirk and built from 1886 to 1913 by William M Park. It is also known as Arthur Street City Baths and Municipal Baths at Spring Hill.

One of the principal reasons for establishing the Arthur Street (now Torrington Street) bath was its location above the Spring Hollow (Water Street) drain, installed in 1884, the waste water from the baths providing a daily cleanse. River water from Petrie Bight was pumped to a small reservoir at the top end of Albert Street, then gravity fed down Spring Hill to the Hollow, where it was stored in holding tanks (now boarded over) at the far end of the baths. Each evening the pool was drained and every morning the water was replenished in a process lasting several hours. This system of flushing the Spring Hill drain was employed for three-quarters of a century.

Not until 1914 did the city council install a salt-water supply scheme to which the baths were linked. As the Brisbane River grew more polluted, chemicals were added to the pool water, and finally a filtration system was installed in 1961.

Sketches done in my  A4 Sketchbook pen and watercolour

 

 BRISBANE CITY SKETCHERS