Black and white

At the beginning of August we booked ourselves into a canon collective event which was focussed on black and white photography. After switching our cameras to black and white mode in order to compose our photos in monochrome, we walked around noticing all the potential. We were encouraged to look for light, shadow, shapes and texture. 

After an hour and a half of wandering around the city we were quite inspired by what we saw so decided to take black and white photos throughout August. Our grid in this post has 4 photographs that we have taken during this last month. 

Leanne: top left, top right
Justine: bottom left, bottom right

Basketry in the Gardens.

As part of our ongoing quest to try new skills, we attended a basket weaving workshop at the Calyx in the beautiful Botanical gardens in Sydney. (same place that we did our drawing class last month!) We had a nice morning learning how to weave and I have already forgotten all the technical terms that were used. It is definitely fun and interesting to keep learning new skills and the setting is so beautiful, if you are ever in the area we would highly recommend visiting. Not sure what is next on the list of activities but will keep you posted. 

Here are out two takes of the basketry class..

Leanne : top left and bottom right

Justine : top right and bottom left

Learning new skills

On Thursday we participated in a drawing class at the Calyx in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens.  It's a beautiful building -full of light and air -with an amazing garden wall backdrop. Perfect inspiration for creative pursuits of any kind. With a table full of beautifully shaped objects from nature's bounty, we chose a few of the simpler shapes (lemons, leaves, garlic) and began to draw.

Our teacher pointed out the light and shadows and gave us a few tips on shapes, perspective and shading. She was very encouraging, with positive and helpful comments that made us feel like we were doing really well. We did learn quite a bit and hopefully we will continue to practice at home. Actually, we were happy and a bit surprised at how well we did!

It's always great to try something new, meet new people and  be creative. A morning very well spent.
Here are our two takes from our drawing class....

top left, bottom right -Leanne

top right, bottom left- Justine