Monday, October 19, 2015

The Old Post Office



Sketches from a few weeks ago when I went to an art exhibition in an old building that used to house Johannesburg's Post Office processing site. Enormous sorting sheds where trains and buses would offload piles of mail, buildings that used to be stables for the P.O. horses, strange machines whose purpose is a mystery (to me anyway). This all hidden behind walls that I've driven past so many times and vaguely wondered if there was anything interesting behind them. We went back to draw before it's all changed - the City Library still uses some of the premises for storage but loft apartments are in the planning stage for others.

In the meantime, Summer has arrived! Gardens are buzzing, jacarandas are in their full purple magnificence, birds and frogs are calling and swimming pools are sparkling in an early heat wave. Why is it that enormous mountains of work - absent and leaving me twiddling my thumbs all through the winter months, when sitting in a sunspot and ploughing through it would be an appealing alternative to sitting on icy windswept pavements - suddenly arrives in truckloads, just when all my urges are telling me to go outside and paint, sketch, experience. Moan, moan, moan and I shouldn't when work is often hard to come by, but really...

3 comments:

Sadami said...

Lovely work, Cathy! Take it easy weather and work. Several years ago, an experienced illustrator taught me that "job hunting" is important skills. Kind regards, Sadami

RH Carpenter said...

I am so impressed by the second sketch of the machinery - such detail!! But I really love the 2-page spread at the top = so pretty and fresh! I hope you can balance work and art enough to be happy this summer (as we are full into autumn and feel the cold breath of winter close by...:(

Cathy said...

Beautiful!!! So much charm!!