A little wisteria

That sounds like a cross between wistfulness and hysteria, kind of how I'm feeling!... life full of distractions and obligations, so little time for painting - last weekend I was supposed to join our fledgling sketchers group and go sketching at a big gardening centre, but was slain by a stomach bug that started on Wednesday and carried on wracking my innards for the next five days. Ugh - anyway, better now but only have this sketch of my lovely new wisteria that I planted last year and which greeted us with scented blossom and bumble bees when we got home from our trip away. I have been warned and reminded by friends that they can run rampant and take over garden, eaves and countryside, but I'm hoping to train this beauty to just shade and decorate my studio doorway.

Rhino Day

Today is World Rhino Day. Here in South Africa we have as a nation, been horrified by the increased wholesale slaughter of these creatures for their horns - a chunk of keratin, no more, no less -  over recent years. This year alone 210 of them have been poached and the population has declined by 90% since 1970. I was in Zambia five years ago where we saw the very last white rhino left in the country, being followed at a distance by his personal armed bodyguard to try and protect him. I wonder if he's still alive? Game rangers and conservationists have resorted to removing the horns to try and prevent their destruction, but the animals are often still shot for the stump that has to remain intact for them to survive. In some cultures it is believed that the horn has medicinal properties as a cure for cancer, and as an aphrodisiac.

A brave oncologist in Malaysia has recently spoken out against this myth - as he says, you may as well chew your fingernails...

The good news is that this week police have arrested eleven people, including two vets, two safari operators and a professional hunter whom they believe to be kingpins in a rhino poaching syndicate that has been relentless and professional in their killing, with more arrests on the cards. But as long as the demand continues, somebody else will doubtless step in. 

Thanks for reading - not sure what good it will do, but the more aware people are I'm sure, the better.

Here is a link to an article about who uses rhino horn and for what purposes.

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.

Coastal Delights

Continuing with our trip to the Cape, our next stop was the seaside town of Hermanus, where my family spent many happy holidays when my grandparents lived there, long long ago. If there's anywhere I'd love to paint in perfect sunshiny vividness, it would be Hermanus - to try and convey the way my heartstrings tugged around every corner, changed though it is from the village my sisters and I roamed freely as small girls. But the only sketch I did during a languorous fresh-fish lunch on the rocks (how this restaurant got permission to build themselves right ON the rocks I don't know!) was the feeble attempt below. I was too busy enjoying watching the whales frollicking in Walker Bay and chatting to one of those sisters and her husband as we reunited from our separate continents for a couple of days. The sketch is of the Whale Crier - a man whose job it is to alert tourists to the presence of whales in the bay by blowing his kelp horn. The whale tail wasn't quite that big, though they were very close... somebody said there were 40, don't know who counts them, but the sea was alive - tails and blowholes and fins flipping and rolling as they played out their primal rituals, oblivious to the oohs and ahs of us onlookers.

Then to Elgin where I sketched the vineyards and the day after the birthday party, off to Cape Town. For once we didn't try to fit everything in, but spoilt ourselves by being tourists, cruising along the coastline and taking in the breathtaking scenery on a sparkling spring day. The top sketch is in the old naval village of Simon's Town, where I sat in the car and sketched the main road while my husband looked for a pharmacy - can't remember what he was after, it couldn't have been serious!

Two more sketches of that trip along the coast to come... my busiest sketching day for a long time.

Prince Albert, Great Karoo

On our trip down to the Cape, after an eleven hour drive from Johannesburg, we stopped for the night at Prince Albert where we'd booked into the Swartberg Hotel. First gratefully downing a cold beer in the pub, under the gaze of some poor departed nyala antelope and a huge pair of kudu horns (my proportions are way out, they were much bigger than the heads) we strolled round the village of beautifully restored Victorian and Cape Dutch buildings, housing mohair and weaving businesses, galleries and craft shops, as the setting sun inflamed the surrounding mountains.

We were entertained at dinner with some of the legends and ghost stories of the 125 year old hotel by our waitress, but were assured that our room was not haunted, whew. The next morning while my husband had a look inside, I sat in the garden of the museum and sketched an ox-wagon with the Seven Arches gallery and restaurant behind it. The plant-like structures on the roof are scrap-metal sculptures by one of the area's many artists.
We didn't use the spectacular steep, zigzagging Swartberg Pass through the mountains as it was under repair after heavy rains, going instead via the equally spectacular but less vertigo-inducing Meiringspoort - but the mind boggles to think how these wagons negotiated their way, long before any roads were built.

Vineyard Afternoon

Another long absence from this space, but I've been having a wonderful break in the most beautiful Cape in all the world - a fairly impulsive trip to help celebrate a birthday, as it's a long way to drive - but well worthwhile on all fronts. A happy family gathering, a party, spring seeping into all the mountains and valleys, sea and veld, wonderful stays in towns and villages that we have whizzed through before and longed to spend a little longer Sometime... well the Sometime arrived and all we wanted to do was spend a lot longer, so next Sometime...

This pen and watercolour sketch was done from a kitchen window on a farm in Elgin, a valley rippling with apple and pear orchards, vineyards and olive groves - on an afternoon where a gale was whipping the trees and vines and threatening to sabotage the birthday party - but at 4 o'clock it dropped as if exhausted and all was calm for the celebrations, to everyone's relief.

If any of our friends and family see these holiday posts and wonder why they didn't see us... I'm sorry! It was a whistle-stop week long tour, and we were being mostly tourists this time. Hope to be back soon for a more sociable visit! Other sketches I did were so rushed and scribbly, I need to work on them a bit to make them presentable, but hope to be sharing a bit more of our lovely week away with you soon.