Pet arrangements

I've been keeping a little sketchbook in the kitchen and scribbling down some of the yin and yang-like poses our dog and cat get into every night after their supper. If I'd done that over the last four years I'd have hundreds of convoluted combos in the collection. This is a crazy weimeraner who, when our daughter brought the waif kitten home, we were convinced with one boisterous nip, would bring about her very early demise. After weeks of protecting her like a coopfull of mother hens from 'The Orc', as we rudely referred to Gucci (the designer dog), one unguarded moment we turned to see Kenzo the kitten tucked under his chin, and both of them fast asleep and very contented, and that's the way they've snuggled up ever since.

And since those first raindrops started plopping down in my last post, it's been raining and pouring here. It's the 25th International Sketchcrawl tomorrow, but with this being the forecast for the next 48 hours, I'll have to find a shopping mall or some such dry place, to take part. I haven't tried very hard to find other sketchers to join me, but if anyone is in the neighbourhood and would like to, leave a comment or email, I'd love to have company!

Testing times

I've been thinking I should try and focus this blog a bit and stick to watercolours and nature, but that's not where life is at the moment, or not all the time.... today was a(nother) trip to a traffic licensing centre to book a learner's test for our youngest child. Heavy traffic, bureaucracy, power outages, frustration, waiting, waiting, and therefore a chance to sketch, what would I do without it? So, some ugly buildings, an ice cream man who came, and went, and came back again, and a turnstile that kept on turning - and eventually a boy with a booking to to take his learner's, please, for the last time this time!!
Oh, but I did get out yesterday for a few minutes to the greenest, lushest most verdant Emmarentia Dam park. I started sketching and watercolouring, when I heard cries of "no, Oscar, nooo-o-oooo!!" and looked up to find the cutest Staffie puppy in mid-flight onto my sketchbook and lap. That was fine, I can incorporate muddy paw prints into a landscape, but then huge raindrops started plopping onto the page and the black clouds said they weren't going to stop, so I flapped the sketchbook closed - thus creating the masterful green reflections in the water - and trekked off home to finish it from memory. I know it looks ridiculously shrieking green - but it was!

Another bit of garden

I painted this after I'd done the jacaranda tree on Sunday. It's a tangle of elder, plumbago and jasmine - which has died down now. The brown bit at the top is our shingle roof. As you can see, the garden is not very well tended, but I rather like tangles and under- and overgrowth (luckily!) We had a huge hailstorm the other day so all this is looking a bit bedraggled and the jacaranda flowers are mostly on the ground.

I've just found this old watercolour I did of a plumbago flower, one of our indigenous and drought resistant plants, that I painted for a friend, who uses it on her business (called Plumbago Blu) card. That's what the blueish smudges in my Sunday sketch are!

Jacaranda time

It doesn't seem a year ago that I was painting jacarandas in flower, but here they are again. This is in our garden - it jostles for position with a yellowwood, a stray little privet and a tall cyprus. We've had lots of wind, hail and rainstorms this year so the blossoms look a little sparser than usual.

Quick scribble

A scribble I did from the lilies a while ago, using the crayons I had lying around on my table - just to say I haven't disappeared. I'm still ploughing through loads of textbook drawings - keep thinking I'm almost at the end, then another lot arrives in my inbox. Hope to resurface soon!

Coming up Roses

The roses at the Botanical Gardens are in full fabulous bloom and I've been wanting to go and spend some time with them and my watercolours all week. Today at last I went and found a lovely spot under a low hanging tree and happily splattered away. I must have blended well into the foliage, at least three wedding parties walked past and nobody seemed to spot me, even when I tried sketching one of the couples as they came down the steps in front of me.














I jotted down notes as I sketched:
'A wedding party nearby... a child laughing as if it's sides would split...
water splashing in fountains. Talking laughing getting louder
then just the fountains. Far away voices and thunder...
tiniest insects that bite like pinpricks... rose smells rose smells.'

By the Stream

Just back from sketchercising... I sat next to the stream that runs into the dam with my original little kit of watercolours and waterbrush. The morning sun was coming through the bright spring leaves, lots of dappled light and dark shadows, leaves, sticks and branches, rocks, water and reflections. The sound of the water trickling a very pleasant start to the day, though I couldn't get it to show up in my little sketch. While that dried I did two tiny sketches, squinting to try and just see bigger shapes and values instead of being distracted by all the many visual things going on. I could have quite happily spent all day there.
I'm reconsidering the waterbrush for this type of sketching - I'm sure I get far more colour and water on my towel than I do on the paper!