The Snoek Run

My other two sketches from our drive around the Cape peninsula last week - we stopped at Miller's Point to watch the snoek boats coming in with their bountiful catches - good to know there still are sometimes bountiful catches to be had for these fishermen. Apparently snoek is nomadic and grows fast, so is resilient to trawlers and other dangers of the deep.

When there's a 'snoek run' the fishing harbours leap into life, as they did on this day. I could have sketched in Kalk Bay harbour for hours (these are sketches done there last year) - the great characters, throwing fish around, cleaning, filleting, shouting, (the language is as blue as the sea and sky) selling, seagulls and seals milling round snatching at morsels tossed aside - but had to settle for a sketch from 'Kalkies' café where we enjoyed a delicious meal of, naturally, fresh snoek.

I have a feeling that if I did sketch the people there might be a 'fee' asked, as for everything else including chatting to this little boy who was playing with the seals with a bag on a rope so we could get photos! 

I posted these two sketches on Urban Sketchers as the original line drawings... I have an almost uncontrollable urge to 'colour-in' later, and often wonder if they would be better just left as they were.

Katherine asked how I carry all my supplies, which at the moment is in a big squarish handbag, with the pens and waterbrush standing upright in a side pocket, and sketchbook all easy to whip out. I don't often have the time and space to add colour on site, though I always have a little Cotman palette in my bag in case. If I'm really hell-bent on a few hours solid sketching I take a simple school backpack with more paints and brushes, small water jars, cloths, a mixing palette and maybe some nicer watercolour paper folded into an accordian sketchbook, and sometimes a little folding stool. My latest sketchbook is a square 'Seawhite of Brighton' one from London Graphic Center - it was a moleskine until recently. Neither perfect for 'good' watercolour technique, but the paper holds up well to a bit of washing and scrubbing. I'll take a picture soon. This all undergoes constant review, so any tips for more efficient sketching are welcome.