Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

Holding thumbs this works out - a video of some sketches from 2018 in my Seawhite-of-Brighton big black sketchbook. Thanks to my techier husband Bruce for adding the soundtrack... Perhaps I could have sketched more... perhaps the next one will be better... perhaps I'll take my sketchbook out today... I'm always glad when I did, and regretful I didn't do so more often. 

Here we're fastening seat belts for a rough ride in 2019, with elections coming up, all parties and factions at each other's throats, and much damage to be repaired - I'm really hoping it won't be as tumultuous as I fear. To you, all my sketching, painting, drawing, blogging, following friends, wishing you a very happy, peaceful and productive New Year.

Thatchers at Work

As I have mentioned, we are in a long slow process of moving to the Western Cape, where we'll be so lucky as to be living and working on an exquisite farm in Franschhoek. Old farm dwellings have been beautifully remodelled, as well as some new ones built, as guest cottages.
The original French Hugenot farmhouse and outbuildings are now in the process of being restored according to heritage requirements into a hotel, dining areas and more accommodation. I spent a blissful autumn morning on a visit there last month, surrounded by mountains and vineyards, watching and sketching a team of thatchers giving the old water mill a new hat.

The skills of these men are quite awe-inspiring as they deftly turn bundles of long grass into a neat weatherproof carapace for this little whitewashed building. Unfortunately much of the mill has been neglected and vandalised over previous decades, so it's doubtful if it'll ever function as a mill again, but still a lovely feature.
I spoke to the foreman, who told me that this team comes mainly from the small town of Macassar, which has its own fascinating history. The craft of thatching has been passed down from father to son, as his father and grandfather did to him - he doesn't know how long his family has done this work, but I wouldn't be surprised if it goes back to the late 1600's, as do Macassar and the Hugenots in the Cape.





Here they were busy with 'toumaak' ...rolling and looping twine by hand, after which the bundles of grass were rhythmically tossed to the roof, where they were lined up and stitched into place with long needles. By this time I was - shamefully having watched the much harder work going on before me - exhausted from sitting in the shade and sketching and had to go in for some tea and a rest... but I checked at intervals as the roof was quickly and expertly layered, combed and knocked into shape and, with a long weekend of well deserved rest in between, finished off with a cap of cement to hold everything in place.

I sat outside again as they completed the finishing touches, and did a final sketch before they packed up and moved on to the next finely crafted job - let's hope the sons of these fathers carry on the good work for years to come.

Poplars and Pétanque

 Well, a very Happy Not-so-New Year to everybody... I have badly neglected my blog as I've become slightly enamoured with Instagram (it's so quick, and instant!) as well as really busy with the usual end-of-year festivities and making plans for the series of 10 years x 10 classes Urban Sketching workshops that we in Joburg have decided to take part in. (If anyone reading this is interested in signing up, click on the link and do it. We start our classes on the 25 March and spaces are limited...you can also email me at the address in my sidebar). And we made another trip to Franschhoek, where I managed to do quite a lot of sketching while my husband, Bruce, was working hard.

It was blissful to do some relaxed watercolouring from the shady stoop of one of the beautiful Forest Cottages that we stayed in at La Cotte Farm. Gardeners were taking a lunch break, with ubiquitous cellphones, from digging out undergrowth from the poplar grove on a hot, hot day.

On the right, done earlier in Johannesburg, a strongly back-lit man sketched at the airport.

On Saturday mornings in summer, Franschhoek has its local market with food, wine, music, lots of stalls to browse and a regular Boules match, just as in real France. A vintageTriumph pulled right up to the cleared patch where the game takes place and a very handsome, cool guy (far right), with two young friends, got out and joined the game. Every now and then an oblivious person strolled across the court, taken with good humour by the otherwise serious pétanque players.

One of the boules participants got stranded on the recto side of a double-page spread - from our parked car the next day I filled the empty space (I was worried I'd run out of pages) with figures outside Pick'n Pay supermarket where someone was selling boerewors (farmer's sausage) rolls at a great rate - hardly any time to sketch his customers so fast was he.

Supper one evening, again, at the Station Pub, where I've sketched before and am now warmly welcomed by the two waitresses I drew, whenever they see me (with good, reasonable food and just down the road, we go quite often - plus, as I've said, Bruce's grandfather was Stationmaster there about a century ago, so we feel quite at home!) This visit had a lively, noisy crowd that I could have sketched all night without them noticing. Revellers coming and going and the two on the right engrossed in long and earnest conversation.

Lastly, a very quick sketch of one of the angel cleaning ladies who come in while you pop out and whip around your cottage, leaving it sparkling for you to come back to and start all your eating, drinking and messing up again. I could get used to that!

Spring in Black & White

 We were down in Franschhoek again last week, mon mari (a little French to suit the location) very busy with meetings, so I had plenty of time to chill - and there is no better place to do that - reading books, drawing and just gazing at the amazing scenery. The house we stayed in has a number of beautiful old black and white drawings and prints of trees in it and I was inspired to try using just pen and ink (my Lamy pen with a fine nib, and Noodlers black ink) to sketch in spite of the seductive brilliant greens just beginning to sprout from every dry branch and vine.

A pair of Egyptian geese had produced a family on the pond outside the house - last time my husband was here there were seven goslings, now reduced to three with a sighting of a rooikat (caracul or lynx) with a little feathered body clamped in its jaws reported! I sketched the survivors grazing on the lawn - their ruthless parents were now dive-bombing them to chase them off the premises - oh to be a bird!

I did try one little watercolour sketch of some indigenous watsonias against the fields, trees and mountains but my sketchbook paper and clumsy waterbrush conspired against the beauty I was trying to portray (well that's my excuse anyway).

A Farm in Franschhoek

As promised, more watercolour sketches from Franschhoek - done in my large w/c moleskine, which is getting a bit old and the paper sucking up paint around the edges (to make excuses for some of the murkier bits). I'm looking forward to when I can call them paintings, but have a long way to go finding the best palette for these landscapes, and in which order to put the paint down, it's all a bit random! The old La Cotte mill is in a dilapidated state, but due for restoration. A friend from Cape Town joined me for this one (and the stoop view) - we sat in long grass, lightly 'tickled' around the ankles by spiders, which erupted later into madly itchy, swollen, angry lumps, will be much more careful next time.
The flower is a tibouchina, of which there are several big bushes around the guesthouse, as well as lavender, proteas and what I think is Lantana montevidensis - it smells exactly like baby powder. Such beauty everywhere you look in this valley, what a privilege to be there!

Down in the Valley

I'm adjusting to being back in Joburg after another blissful week in the magnificent Franschhoek valley (a small preview: you will probably be seeing many more posts from this neck of the Western Cape woods in time!) Not an entirely peaceful or quiet stay as we were on this estate where a pine forest had been cleared to make way for vineyards - the roots of which were being bulldozed and put into piles, and builders were hard at work nearby making an old cottage habitable and charming - but completely made up for by the scenery and the glittering autumn weather. I sketched this from the window of our bedroom, thinking I'd make a record of the changes taking place - landscape and mountains are new sketching and painting territory for me and I almost scrubbed through my poor sketchbook paper trying to get the colours. Much more sturdy watercolour paper required until I get this right! 

A few days later, my husband and I went up the hill to a winery where the first batch of La Cotte wine - made from grapes from the estate that we were on - was being bottled. These guys had to work like clockwork passing the bottles from pallet to washer to packer to filler... during a short break while they waited for more empty bottles to arrive, they came and had a look what I was doing and I said I'd email them a copy if they could give me an address... which caused a slight hiccup in the proceedings and suddenly there was breaking glass, red wine gushing out onto the floor and some frantic smashing and tugging to get the broken bits out of the machine! I did feel bad, but only three bottles were lost, and I was told the bottlers were happy to be drawn, and they will get their copies! I didn't capture the loud banter, laughter and repartee that started after I been drawing for a while, all in the local vernacular, which I can follow if spoken slowly and clearly, not at 900 words a minute with clinking bottles and machinery as soundtrack (I did catch "teken" = draw!)

And a photo of another attempt at the mountains and valley in my watercolour Moleskine - the urge to paint everything was strong and constant, such a change from hunting for subject matter as I seem to always be doing here - more of these in another post.

Holiday Snaps

From the picturesquely perfect little town of Franschhoek in the Western Cape, more sketches from our holiday. I was determined to do some in spite of lots of eating, drinking, socialising and driving around. I'm only about halfway through Marc Holmes' Craftsy course on Travel Sketching but I took some of his tips on doing simple line drawings in the minutes you do have, and embellishing them later with texture and/or colour when you have a few more. Way off his high standards, but I'm pretty pleased with having been able to capture some little vignettes of our trip!

This was from under a big cool pine tree next to an African market that my companions were shopping at - looking through a rose garden towards restaurants and shops on the Main Road to part of the beautiful mountain bowl that surrounds the town.

 A derelict heritage building dating back to Simon van der Stel and French Huguenot times that is due for restoration, on a small farm near the village. Such textures and colours on the whitewashed walls, corrugated tin roof and ancient vines - could sit and paint this for weeks!

Lunch at the Franschhoek Station now turned into a pub restaurant - the old railway station of which, incidentally, my husband's grandfather was the stationmaster in the 1920's. His mother and some of her siblings were born and went to school in Franschhoek, a very different place from the high-end tourist destination it is now. We visited here a few years ago before it had been converted. It was a bit run down but without all the canopies and pub furniture, was much easier to visualise him standing on the platform blowing his whistle... wish I'd sketched it then! Waiters Yolanda and Romarsha noticed me sketching and obligingly hovered within view so I could add them to the scene - I sent them the image but hope they see themselves here too...