The choir

Over a week since I've been here - I'm still nose to the grindstone and it feels like I've blended permanently into my computer chair, but on Sunday I went to church to listen to the Holy Cross Anglican choir of Soweto who came to sing for us. Warm, spine-tingling, deeply holy - hard to describe the feelings that this harmonious group engenders, from sorrowful to soaring joy. I sketched as I listened, but of course only one person at a time, so if I drew one person dancing and swaying, they were all dancing and swaying, or clapping or happy or sombre. Services in Soweto apparently go on for hours, unlike in the Northern suburbs, where everyone is impatient to get to their golf, or lunch, or Wimbledon on TV - so the choir had just warmed up, said Thandi the leader, when they had to wind it up for us - but a wonderful start to the week, in which there are yet more illustrations to be drawn... until next time!

Sawtooth Oak

Just a quickie posting of this tree I sketched on my walk today - took some Time Out from computer colouring. I'm planning to join in Vivien's Tree Challenge when the rush is over - you can never have enough tree practice!

Back soon

My big drawing job has returned for urgent finishing - a lot to do by this time next week, so I probably won't be doing much blogging until then... I also feel I just haven't got time to stop and sketch right now when out walking. Yesterday I trotted off, and went past a tree with a layer of beautiful. ebony, curling, twisting pods spread thickly underneath it - a perfect sketching subject but no time, and no equipment with me either......nor anything to put them in - but I gathered up as many as my two little hands could hold and marched on home, feeling like a rather dotty lady with my spoils held aloft in front of me. They're displayed in a basket for now, waiting for a time when life isn't quite so demanding, to be painted and drawn.

On Sunday my nephew, his wife and gorgeous pumpkin of a nine-month old baby boy came and joined BFG and me for a walk around the dam - which I'm amazed to hear many people who've lived in Joburg all their lives don't even know about! - we took turns to carry the pumpkin, whew! Talk about weight-bearing exercise, that was a hard workout... but a lovely day and so much fun. We stopped for Jesse to have a snack (he'd worked so hard!) and for us to catch our breath, and I did two very fast and rather shaky sketches. Sorry Fel! That is a truly horrible rendition of your pretty face!
OK - back to work - that took far longer than I meant it to. Enjoy your paints/pencils/pens, walking and whatnot. See you soon!

Damp sunshiny day

Winter in Joburg is usually as dry as a bone - your hair crackles and flies, you get nasty static electric shocks when you touch door handles and each other, and though the air may be icy, you can always find a sunny spot to curl up, thaw out, and doze in... but this week, it has rained and rained and rained, so my sketchercising outdoors came to a halt. I know I can't expect sympathy from you who live in much wetter climes, but rain and cold bring out the quivering wimp in me!
However, this morning the sun emerged and I put on my tackies and hotfooted it down to the dam. A few metres on from the stagnant pond is the edge of the main dam [which was built on the farm called Emmarentia (after the farmer's wife) at the end of the Boer War by returning landless farmers] where I sat to draw and paint the ducks, and then the broader view from the same bench.
After the rain, everything seemed washed clean and the damp drippy foliage was full of sparkles and subtle herby smells - beautiful and worth the few wet days - but the clouds are building up again, and I think I speak for most Joburgers when I say That's enough!

Urban Sketchercising

Well I tootled off to fetch the seagull painting from the Watercolour Society - as I expected, it was turned down, but the two Spring studies got in. They were very nice about it, and suggested I tone down the yellow and resubmit it. Maybe. On the long way home I stopped at Sandton City, looking for a warm jersey (sweater/jumper?) to buy in this shockingly cold snap we're having. After trawling the enormous shopping centre, (I think if I'd had a pedometer attached it would have totted up quite a large number of steps!) I had coffee in the Food Court and sketched some of the patrons, for Urban Sketchers, as I've neglected that blogging activity for some time. But I reckon I killed two birds with one stone.

Sketchercise Day Two

I went on my second Sketchercise today - going to have to up my rate a bit to get the benefits of this! Being Sunday, my husband came with me - he was at a bit of a loose end while I sat on a bench and sketched this little cactus garden patch. He'll have to bring a book or a camera to keep himself occupied. I added a Unipin pen to my kit - it's quicker to get some outlines down before the watercolour goes on - still didn't fit in the 'main actor', the plant leaning on the rock, though. It's so cold at home, but the winter sunshine really heats up outside in the middle of the day - was great to be out in it.

My seagull as a Miro

...with apologies to Miro! I took my Seagull painting and a couple of other watercolours - spring sketches done in my garden - to the Watercolour Society yesterday to submit for a "New Signatures' exhibition. I've put off getting more involved in the WSSA for so long, and though I wasn't too confident about my paintings, I thought I'd Just Do It instead of procrastinating for another month/year/decade. I overheard two members there puzzling over the painting..."What is it?"... "a banana?"..."I don't know..." And when my son asked which paintings I'd taken, I told him and he said, "Oh, ja, the Seagull and the Banana"! :oD Then my sister Gillian asked in the comments what is a bollard, she's never heard of it, I thought I'd better explain a few things!
At Kalk Bay harbour I was talking to my husband about 'those yellow things', and he informed me they were called Bollards, which according to the dictionary is a 'short thick post to which a ship's mooring-rope may be tied' (my husband knows everything!)
I was seeing the shapes as a sort of abstract design - crescent moon (I didn't see a banana!), heart and bird-shadow, and in a realistic painting I probably should have described the bollard better - painted round the ellipse at the base instead of blending it into its shadow, or else done it whole-heartedly as an abstract - even my 'Miro' version could get a lot more abstract.
I'm kind of expecting to have to collect my Seagull from the WSSA after selection day, probably with a kind but baffled comment about the Yellow Thing hovering above the gull...

Sketchercising Day One

I have taken a leap and signed up for Katherine Tyrrell's Sketchercise project... not at all sure that I can keep it up, but as I've been walking around our neighbourhood, on and off, for years, and sketching pretty regularly the last two (almost) blogging years, I thought I'd combine the two and hopefully stimulate both activities.
This morning I packed a compact little watercolour set-up, that'll fit into my belt-bag/hip-pack/bum-bag thingy that I can hide under my roomy track top. I don't like to dwell on the downsides of living in Johannesburg, but carrying any sort of a bag while walking alone in a sparsely populated area, is inviting trouble, and I don't believe the opportunists would take the time to ask what's in the bag before relieving you of it!
Anyway, just a few steps inside the gate of the park surrounding Emmarentia Dam, is this rather smelly stagnant little pond (that our Weimeraner, who hates water in every other situation , delights in leaping into and coating himself in gunge). It was rather an ambitious subject for my planned 15 minutes or so of sketching - I left my watch at home so not sure how long I did spend - but it was a start. All very pleasant, but it seemed to take a big chunk out of the day. I should start out earlier in the morning, but that's so freezing cold here in June until September! And I need a pedometer so I can keep track of my steps.

The Seagull

I decided to try a full-on finished watercolour painting from the seagull sketch in the last post, using a couple more photographs to add reflections of a boat, and the yellow bollard, which struck me at the time as a larger mirror image of the seagull's beak. I don't know if this is compositionally sound, but I liked the three strong shapes of the gull and shadows (is the bottom one too strong? - and it looks like a duck!). I tried to stay loose, but got quite involved in the textures of the flagstones.
Looking at the painting next to the sketch on the screen, I think I prefer the warmer, softer colours in the sketch - darn - I don't know if I have the dedication to do it over again :/