Mr Thebault spent much of the address trying to make the case that Paris was deadly serious and utterly sincere. Some Australian government sources have implied that the French anger is partly performative, and that Mr Macron's public display of fury was made with one eye on the approaching presidential election in April next year. Mr Thebault spent his address trying to make clear that Paris was sincere in its outrage.
Phones buzzed relentlessly when Mr Thebault was at the podium and in the following hours as foreign policy watchers in Canberra - Australian officials, diplomats and journalists - traded notes and quips. Some speculated Mr Thebault would be keen to look forward rather than back, and sketch out how Australia could rebuild trust with France in the wake of what the French Foreign Minister famously labelled a "stab in the back" on submarines.īut fury in Paris over the leaked text messages curdled any prospects - however dim - of rapprochement. The speech was always going to be mandatory viewing for the diplomatic corps, even before the dispute took its late twist in Rome. The newspapers stories and predictable headlines emblazoned above - "Liar Liar France on Fire" - landed only one day before the French ambassador Jean-Pierre Thebault was due to front the National Press Club to lay out his vision for the future of the relationship. Within hours they took the extraordinary step of breaking an ironclad diplomatic convention and leaking to Australian media outlets private messages from Mr Macron, which they believed would fatally undermine his accusation that Mr Morrison lied. This just shows what you can do in a short amount of time and how fluidity in mark making can alter the feel of your drawings.There was also, presumably, a moment when Mr Morrison and his lieutenants, after weighing up how he should respond, decided they should also go nuclear. It was nice to just draw something for the fun of it and once I got past the panic of being timed I produced some good sketches. I like the curves of the bottle in this sketch and think it’s a good representation of the object, especially with the bold lines suggesting it’s something sturdy. Although there is a lack of detail, I still think most of the objects are recognisable, especially if you had seen the photo of them beforehand. I was interested to see what I could produce in such a short time frame and am quite happy with the results. I was unsure how the loss of a minute would affect my sketch and I do admit I was a bit preoccupied thinking about how much time I had left, but I tried to focus on strong lines once again and I think the finished sketch is decent.įor my final sketch, I set the timer to just 1 minute. My brush strokes here are a lot bolder and I’m actually really pleased with how this sketch turned out.Īfter rearranging the objects again I reduced the amount of time to 2 minutes. By doing this I actually ended up with spare time to add in some detail. This time I calmed myself before starting sketching and focused more on the shapes of the objects. I then moved the objects and once again set a timer for 3 minutes. The sketch itself is quite messy and I think my sense of panic can be seen in the loose lines and rapid brush strokes. I felt quite nervous and rushed as I did this and kept looking at the clock to see how much time I had left. For my sketches, I used pentel brush pen as I thought this would be good for quick loose drawings and would help me loosen up due to the unpredictable brush nib.įor my first sketch, I set a timer for 3 minutes as the exercise asked me to do.
I thought this was a good range of objects of varying size and shapes and so would be a good test of my drawing abilities. I started off my collecting my objects – an interesting shaped painted bottle, a can of fixative, a fake plant, a small box and a large candle. I was asked to set up a scene of objects and then draw them at varying speeds ranging from 3 to 1 minute/s, rearranging the objects in between to change up the composition.