Gotham Towers

I had a lovely morning with the Brisbane City Sketchers, sketching in King George Square.  I chose the Law building this morning, because I really loved the shapes between the Town Hall and the Law Building.  

The Law building  was built over 40 years ago, and the facade we Brisbanites affectionately call "Gotham Towers" or "The Batman Building"  was built in 1995.

Sketched in my handmade 7" x 8" sketchbook pen and watercolour

Brisbane City Sketchers in Roma Street Parkland

What a wonderful morning, sketching at the Roma Street Parklands with the Brisbane City Sketchers..

In 1825 the Roma Street Parkland area was part of the original Brisbane settlement. In 1875 a terminal station in Roma Street was constructed as part of the main western railway to Brisbane linking Ipswich and Toowoomba.  Local Indigenous people used the area for thousands of years conducting meetings and ceremonies. Construction began of the current Parkland in 2000 and the parkland opened to the public in 2001.

I sat in Fern Gully to sketch this mother duck and her seven babies.  I did the same last year too, this is her favourite place to rear them.

 

 

The lady right facing brought her gorgeous four year old  granddaughter with her today, and April made three of those artworks below.  She is an amazing little girl.

The Little Red Providore

THE LITTLE RED PROVIDORE

In past lives, this 140-year-old building on Windsor Road was once a General Store, then an antique lighting store before its more recent transformation into the eatery. Today, the matte black painted building has taken on a new persona as The Little Red Providore.

Handmade sketchbook 8" x 7" Pen and Watercolour

Brisbane City Sketchers at New Farm park

The New Farm park Ferry Terminal is under construction, being one of the last terminals along the river to be rebuilt into flood proof structure.

Three of us sat in the End of the Road cafe, sipping coffee whilst we sketched. It was a lovely morning.

Handmade 8" x 6" sketchbook graphite, pen, and watercolour.

 Brisbane City Sketchers

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Brisbane Australia Temple is the 115th operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Brisbane temple is the fifth temple in Australia.

A groundbreaking ceremony and site dedication for the temple were held on May 26, 2001. Construction began in November of 2001, and it took eighteen months and eleven million dollars to complete its construction. Despite the high price, the temple was built without any debt and was completely funded by members of the Mormon Church.

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.