Sunshine and light

First of all, I want to thank each one of you who left comments on my previous post, and on Urban Sketchers - I was bowled over by the warmth, empathy and defensive outrage that supportively flooded my inbox, as well as from friends who phoned and emailed. It really made a bitter pill easier to glug down and reminds me again that most people are good, very good - kind and loving. Thank you, thank you! After a period of adrenaline over-supply, in which I cleaned and scrubbed and sorted, came a few days of exhaustion and resignation, and then a pull towards colour, light, innocence and freedom from care and worry. I found an old black and white photo of myself taken on Grotto Beach, Hermanus in the Cape - one of very few photos of me as a child - that perfectly encapsulated those qualities for me, and tried to paint it in colour... well anxiety and watercolour didn't mix too well - my flat washes were anything but, my figure was murky (left), but I quite liked the way the umbrellas and loose figures came out on the beach. I tried the girl figure again (right), and started a new painting with all together on a clean sheet of paper, which must be old and heat damaged (my studio bakes in summer), as it just sucked up the paint and allowed nothing to flow at all. So I resorted to Photopaint and put the cleaner figure on the beach (below), and then flattened and intensified my sky and darkened the figure in the shadow - in the top painting. If only one could manipulate life (and watercolour) so easily!

After this exercise I'm looking forward more than ever to Hazel Soan's workshop next month, in which the aim will be to maintain fresh vibrant watercolour, with immediacy, boldness, liveliness - with strong depth of colour and light and shade - I know I've had moments in watercolour where I've achieved some of that, but it all seems to have escaped me right now - roll on March 15th!

Stealing time

I took a friend to the dentist on Monday morning, and sketched in this very nice little coffee shop while I waited. Back home, while so happily engaged - burglars were busy rifling through our house. I'm glad I wasn't there, but this sketch joins the artwork in the file 'While we were being robbed'. Whingeing about Joburg and its crime is boring and futile, but honestly, sometimes one just despairs. There are far more friendly, generous, nice people here than there are thieves and vagabonds, but that small proportion certainly makes life uncertain and unpleasant for the rest.

When my son and I got home, the sliding gate was a little open and we couldn't move it any further - we walked in and Kenzo our cat was wailing to beat the band. I thought she was hurt or stuck, but she was just trying to tell us something... then we saw the dog inside the house, when I'd left him out... a bit sheepish looking, but relaxed... then we saw the mayhem.

Poor old Gucci has been an outstanding watchdog all his life, but is now a bit deaf and creaky, and sleeps like a log. He may have woken up and given them a fright, as they had been disturbed while removing the computer - I am relieved that he's OK, as dogs also fall victim to the thugs.

They were after money and firearms, which unfortunately we had in a safe, hidden, but found and removed lock stock and barrel. And our son's precious playstation, and we may still be discovering what else for a while to come.

It's hard to imagine what sort of person looks at your family photos - of children laughing on the walls, at their collections of treasures and books on their shelves, at all the evidence of ordinary daily living around a home, and then trashes it and steals not only the goods, but the trust and peace of mind, body and heart. He can only have had an awful life full of hatred and violence... well that's how I deal with it - I'm afraid some of my family are feeling rather bitter and vindictive...

<--While my car was being stolen from outside the figure drawing class.

In a journal after all the computers at my husband's business had been removed one night...

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San Francisco Bay

After much cruising around the streets of San Francisco Bay, thanks to the Virtual Paintout challenge, I finally made a decision to paint this view of Beach Rd, Belvedere - a place I think I'd be happy to holiday in, if I was magicked away to S.F. by a sleight of some travel wizard's hand. There's some coastline and a lovely yacht basin just below this shady, winding road. I'm embarrassed now, to think I thought I'd 'seen' this city on an overnight trip there about 17 years ago. What we saw was Fisherman's Wharf, and a steep road which we descended in one of the famous trams, and the Golden Gate bridge - a tiny fragment of this enormous sprawling place.

The painting didn't turn out the way I had hoped - I can tell I haven't done much watercolouring lately. It's green and brown, which was not my intention, and the big strong shapes of dark and light got splintered into a jigsaw of details and fussery. I might try it again, with boldness.

Dam birds

This was one of my favourite sketching mornings last year, so I did it again, going down and just sitting amongst the geese, ducks and other water birds at the dam. They all get agitated and scramble into the water at first, then forget about you and amble back out and get back to their business. Today it was just a bit of preening, then lots of sleeping - obviously I caught them at nap time.

There was a Sacred Ibis, two little Mallard hens and a white faced coot and her hungry chick, none of which I've seen there before. The ibis kept his distance, but the little coot with her huge feet was quite sure I could help her out with some bread for her noisy child. I sketched first with a fat 'Furby' pencil, which was a bit too fat, then with the Pentel brush pen and added watercolour here and there.