Brisbane City Sketchers in North Shore Hamilton

North Shore Harbour Brisbane;
This area was formerly home to Brisbane’s working wharves, which were established in 1923. Hamilton was developed extremely early in European settlement when Brisbane was still a penal colony, the women's prison was moved to Hamilton in 1833. Hamilton Road (now the airport thoroughfare, Kingsford Smith Drive) was originally built by convict labour as an access road to the prison.

From where I was sitting at North Shore harbour, I was looking across river at Colmslie Beach, and  Raptis Fishing Trawlers Raptis started in Australia in the 1950s They are now one of Australias largest privately owned fishing companies.

 

 

Brisbane Arcade in Adelaide Street

We have a wonderful morning sketching in Adelaide Street and the Arcade this morning.  Brisbane Arcade has a scandalous History....

Brisbane Arcade was opened in March 1924. It was built for Dr James Mayne, and his sister Mary Emelia Mayne, their brother Isaac having purchased the site in 1892. Builders‎: ‎J & E L Rees, Forsyth & Speering designed by Richard Gailey Jnr

Irish immigrant and slaughterman Patrick Mayne arrived in the fledgling colony's Kangaroo Point in 1844 and married Mary McIntosh. Five years later, to the great surprise of friends, he invested sudden and unexplained wealth in a butcher's shop, adjoining coach-house and upstairs residence in a prime block on Brisbane's smart Queen St. The amount was paid in cash, and was the equivalent of about five years' slaughterman wages.

From there, Mayne set about acquiring a further 400ha of prime inner-city real estate. Despite the Maynes' affluence however, they were increasingly shunned by Brisbane's "more polite" society as Patrick's fits of insanity and alcohol-fuelled violence (he had a fondness for attacking perceived enemies with his stockwhip) grew more frequent.

Shockingly, in 1865, on his deathbed, more or less where the Colorado store sits on an arcade corner today, Mayne confessed that 17 years earlier he murdered a man and that someone else had been hanged for it.

The dead man was a drunken timber-gatherer named Robert Cox who'd foolishly boasted of his earnings from a big cedar find. Police maintained it was one of the most savage slayings they'd seen.

The man's legs and torso were found in the Brisbane River; his entrails were dumped in a well; and his severed head was propped up quite deliberately in a shed to gaze at whoever found it.

After Mayne's and Mary's deaths, their children became generous benefactors to churches and charities.

None of them married – some say fearing to pass on their father's madness – and they promptly tore down their parents' butcher shop and their childhood home.
In 1923, they built the Brisbane Arcade on the scandal-ridden site.

Three years later, in another apparently redemptive quest, Patrick's offspring bought land at St Lucia and donated it to the University of Queensland, with all profits from the Brisbane Arcade Trust going to support the university.

Today, Brisbane's most historic shopping precinct continues to be operated by the trustees of the estate of Dr James Mayne and Mary Emelia Mayne (Patrick's youngest two children), with proceeds to UQ's medical school.

 

 Sketched in my handmade sketchbook 7.5 x 6 inches, Lamy pen and watercolour

 

 

 There are five light posts along Adelaide Street, starting outside Office Works, that have bronze sculptures in the. Next time you are walking along there, look up. Sculpted by Fred Whitehouse 1996 there is a Possum - Flying Fox - Snake - Goanna - Birds.
Same sketchbook and  lamy pen.

 

 

 

 

 

Brisbane City Sketchers at The Mansions

What a wonderful morning, sketching with the Brisbane City Sketchers at Gardens Point.  We sketched the magnificent Mansions, or part thereof.  Such a beautiful building, but very intimidating.  I started with graphite, then inked it then watercolour.

THE MANSIONS; designed by G.H.M. Addison and built in 1889 by RE Burton.
By 30 November 1889 two of the villas were occupied by members of parliament, William Pattison and the Hon. Hume Black. Advertisements in the Brisbane Courier for tenants to let both the "George Street Mansions and Harris Terrace" on the opposite corner of Margaret Street appeared in the Brisbane Courier during December 1889. Other early residents were doctors - in 1890 Dr Fourness Simmons and a Dr Bennett.
In December 1891, Dr Lilian Cooper, Queensland's first woman doctor and Australia's first female surgeon, established her consulting rooms in The Mansions and resided there for several years after the 1893 floods.

 I sketched this in my handmade 8" x 7.5 sketchbook on 90lb paper.

Sketching Angles..

I had a lovely afternoon sketching with a friend in her complex gardens.  This corner with all the angels appealed to me, so I decided to give it a go. 

Sketched in my Holcroft 6" x 8" sketchbook with pen and watercolour

Church Sketching with fellow Urban Sketcher.

I had a lovely morning with fellow Brisbane City Sketcher John, sketching this magnificent church.  It was a tad cool, with a nasty westerly wind blowing on us in our exposed position outside the South Brisbane Train Station..

This drawing was a challenge, but fun to do..

History of the Church;
The congregation of the South Brisbane Congregational Church first met in 1865 in the Mechanics Institute, Stanley Street, but they built a fine wooden building in Grey Street, which was opened in January 1867. It was dismantled following the 1893 floods, and rebuilt in Vulture Street. The congregation moved to the rebuilt building on Sunday 23 July 1893. The wooden church was gutted by fire on 16 October 1931, and the congregation repaired in the short term to the Hall for services. A new octagonal church, designed by T.B.F. Gargett of Brisbane, was opened and dedicated on 9 September 1933. The congregation ceased to worship at this location in 1975, and the building was sold to the Serbian Orthodox congregation.

St Nicholas Free Serbian Orthodox Church.

 Sketched in my 8.5" x 6" handmade sketchbook graphite/pen/watercolour.

 Cars are not my strong point, yet.

                                                           

Out sketching on my own

Tingalpa Pioneers' Chapel, Christ Church,  was founded by the Anglicans founded in 1868
It was - Demolished by cyclone in 1885 and rebuilt using the original timbers, where there are  the graves of pioneers and their descendants, dating from 1868 to 2008. The Chapel was Decommissioned and stripped for demolition in 1996 but saved when chapel and cemetery were Heritage Listed.

 

Sketched in my 8.5" x 6' sketchbook HB and 2B Faber Castell graphite