How to get a matplotlib Axes instance to plot to?

Question

I need to make a candlestick chart (something like this) using some stock data. For this I want to use the function matplotlib.finance.candlestick(). To this function I need

Answer 1

You can either

fig, ax = plt.subplots()  #create figure and axes
candlestick(ax, quotes, ...)

or

candlestick(plt.gca(), quotes) #get the axis when calling the function

The first gives you more flexibility. The second is much easier if candlestick is the only thing you want to plot