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.

EVERY DAY in May!

I signed up for the annual 'Every Day in May' challenge on Facebook and Flickr. Am already thinking, Oy what was I thinking!?... I decided to brush up on my watercolour skills while doing this and really enjoyed the first three days - maybe watercolour is my medium after all. I've been faffing around with oils for a while now and still don't quite feel the love.

Day 1 was a favourite food, and the only appetizing things in my kitchen were some grapefruit and avocados that we'd bought at the roadside on a recent trip to the bush. Just come into season, fresh and delicious!

Day 2 - a nearby Tree -  so I looked out of our front window and lo, there was a beautifully autumnal Pride of India (or Crepe Myrtle) that I'd hardly noticed was turning. Nothing like painting something to appreciate your surroundings.

Day 3 was Curtains and as I'd left all my painting clobber by the window and had room on the side of the page, I added the sitting room curtain plus more of the rather unkempt background garden (top of this post)







Day 4 - Bottle/s of spice or herbs. Not really inspired by this one and left it till late in the day to pull a common old bottle of Robertson's cinnamon out of the cupboard and tackle it.  Drawing it took me right to my days as a 'renderer' in an ad agency - back in the day when there were no computers, digital cameras or google. We had shelf-loads of reference magazines and racks of Magic Markers and I drew for eight hours a day and sometimes more and all weekend if there was a big campaign on - no extra pay! 'Pack shots' similar to this one were where I stared intensely at glass, plastic, ellipses, shadows and logos to work out how to recreate them 2D on paper.

Day 5 - Something Hot. Seeing as my husband wouldn't pose :) I settled for my morning coffee in a hot orange mug. Thoroughly overworked in places, I seem to be getting worse at this as I go along. Should be good for me though, if I persevere!

I'll try and post every day for the rest of May to prevent having to write so much the next time - short and sweet to get bum off seat.

A Bunch of Sketches & Visitors

 Yikes - it's April, and autumn already, and I've been so busy sketching and painting and thinking about what I want to/need to/have to do - posting it all has taken a back seat. To think I once started blogging to try and motivate myself to draw more... well, something's working at the moment!

We've had a couple of visits lately from sketchers from other parts of the country and the world. Ex-Joburg Sketcher Barbara Moore came up recently from her new home in Simon's Town in the Cape, and three of us had a relaxed morning catching up and sketching on a beautiful clear autumn day at Zoo Lake.

An icecream man pondering the lake with a beaded dragonfly mobile behind him

Waitrons and a mirrored angel - over cappucinos at Moyo restaurant 

A couple of weeks before that French urban sketcher Michel Davinroy was in town. He had been sketching prolifically on his own, but joined us at a Dance Umbrella rehearsal at the Market Theatre for the difficult challenge of capturing the unpredictable movements of contemporary dancers, mostly in the dark!

And yesterday, we arranged a mid-week sketching session in the nearby suburb of Melville to meet Brighton, England resident and world traveller Fiver Löcker.

It's exciting that we are so much "on the map" that sketchers from around the world are starting to seek us out to draw together, and enrich us all with their stories, sketches and enthusiasm! 

Car guards and basket ladies outside the Golf Tearoom in Melville

Fiver sketching on her iPad in the eclectic clutter of Antz café, Melville

Impala Stampede

I went with a small group of Joburg Sketchers into the city on Saturday, to the financial district on Main St. I wanted to draw this sculpture which is a replica (or restoration?) of one created by Herman Wald - commissioned in the 60's by Harry Oppenheimer in memory of his father Ernest. The iconic original bronze was located nearby in the Oppenheimer Park, but during a stage of urban decay and neglect was vandalised and presumably sold for scrap.
Anyway, here it is now, looking beautiful  - joyous in summer, as I last saw it, with fountains playing and agapanthus blooming. But on this autumn day with a chilly wind whistling round the tall buildings, me sniffing and snorting with the back end (I hope) of a rotten cold and the statue mostly in shade, all seemed a bit deserted and forlorn, with the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court peering sternly through the grasses. The security guards who stopped to chat assured me that during the week it's a hive of activity, so perhaps I'll go back when it's busier (and in summer when it's warmer.)
The only other interaction I had was with a rather unsteady fellow who wanted to discuss politics with me, but couldn't quite remember the politician's name he wanted to talk about - and also omitted to remove his earphones so couldn't hear my point of view if I'd had one. All in all not the best ever day out sketching, but at least I can tick the Impalas off my to-do list!

Autumn show

We're having glorious autumn weather at the moment - I took time yesterday to sketch these cymbidiums that come up every year without fuss or gardening attention in the shade at the bottom of the garden. You hardly see them unless the sun catches some of the yellow and rust-coloured blooms and you go a bit closer.

Autumn Break

Whee! Finished with the commissioned illustrations for now, and having emailed them off this morning, I fairly dashed down the road to Emmarentia Dam where the clear autumn sunshine and the ducks were calling. After weeks of careful black lines and digital colouring it was so good to dip a brush into real watercolour and splash it onto real paper!
I see now that the waterline is none too straight and the water itself rather murky and unsatisfactory. Lots of room for improvement, but it was a lovely hour or so, and I was glad to catch some of the autumn colours and get away from the computer.
I apologise for not doing much commenting lately (though I have been checking out most of my favourite blogs over breakfast or tea) - after hours on end on the 'pooter and with eyes, neck and shoulders screaming for mercy, I just put it on hold for a while. But thank you to all my visitors here for dropping by and taking the time to leave comments - it is as always very much appreciated. I should be back in the blogging saddle again soon!

A Day at the Zoo

The BFG and me went to the zoo yesterday - the first time (since we've had them) that we've been sans children. There was a birding exhibition on that my friend Wendy had a stall on (see her stunning wildlife cross stitch kits here). On a chilly autumn day, it was relaxing to wander around not worrying if the kids were trying to pet the rhinocerous or feed ice cream to the orang-atangs. And of course to sketch, while B took photos and chatted to fellow animal-gazers. I began with the Johannesburg Youth Orchestra in the rondavel in the middle of the exhibition. I put on a little watercolour later at home, determined not to do my usual 'colouring-in' thing and use it to subtley indicate the season - even so, after planning to put just a splash of colour in the middle branches, couldn't resist doing almost all the leaves, and the little plain(plein?)tree seed balls too.

Then I tried the elephants, but before I'd realised I was using totally the wrong medium to draw their massive bulks quickly before they moved, they lumbered off to a group of people behaving like a bunch of bananas on the other side of the enclosure.

On through the crocodile ponds - I enjoyed sketching this very co-operative model - only it's eyes blinked, so slowly that I caught them in mid-blink I think - they're neither open nor closed. I'd like to go back on a quiet day to draw them. There were a whole necklace of them splayed around the water's edge. The guineafowl feathers were lying around - aren't they beautifully graphic? I can never resist collecting them for some (so far) mysterious purpose.

Up to the lions - there are a few different groups of them cordoned off from each other. This big handsome boy was besotted with the sleeping lioness, licking and nuzzling and resting his head on her. The other poor girl tried to get his attention, getting up eventually and offering him her head for a cuddle, but he snarled and growled at her and she sadly resumed her position. Has she no pride? (sorry!:-)
Lastly the giraffes - as this was my Urban Sketchers date too for the week, I included the very posh Westcliff Hotel up on the hillside. I meant to paint it pink, as it famously is, but this is in water-soluble graphite, so the pink would be dirty puce if I tried.
While I was sketching the giraffes, some little girls came to have a look, and were flatteringly impressed, and wanted to see all my sketches. When they saw the orchestra one they were very excited, as one of them was the girl playing the violin on the left. She was overjoyed to recognise herself. If I'd had my wits about me I would have got their email address and sent them copies of all the sketches - darn it - next time! If you see this, girls, tell me and I will...

Honeysuckle Struggles

We've had an unexpected and very welcome flurry of lovely family visiting so I haven't managed to keep up with posting, not being a great multi-tasker. But I had started trying to paint the Golden Shower honeysuckle creeper that pours over our ramshackle old pergola and makes it look splendiferous in spring and autumn. I was really struggling with portraying the myriad sprays of blossoms, and really wanted to show my best bit of how they drop off their bracts and hang from thin little threads like teardrop earrings, and was getting so caught up in those intricacies that I forgot about the big blank wall below. I have really done a big 'cheat' and Photopainted out a badly-drawn chair that I plonked in the middle, and actually think I'll have to start this all over again and paint the dog before I paint the fleas, a post I very timeously found on Jana Bouc's blog just when I was starting to
gnaw my knuckles in frustration.

I thought it would be simpler to just paint one flower-bract, but still managed to run out of room at the bottom to fit in the teardrops, so will have to do this one all over again too. I think I'll have to go shopping for some pure orange watercolour paint too as my mixtures of Yellow Gamboge, Cadmium Red Light and Winsor Red just aren't quite capturing the radiance. I really want to get this corner of sunshine down to my satisfaction, as I have been thinking about doing it for so very long!
(I wouldn't have posted these until they were better, but it's been a while since my last post, and I thought I'd better put something on in case anyone was wondering where I'd got to.)

Autumn leaves and roses(again)

I have been watching the trees turn and drop their leaves for weeks now on my (almost) daily walk, and thinking I must come back with sketchbook and paints to try and catch the jewel-like colours in the morning light. I didn't though, and there are now just a few left clinging to the nearly bare branches. So I gathered some outside our front door and piled them into my studio, and finally got to paint them yesterday. I have to have two watercolour paintings on the go at a time, as I can't stand waiting for the paint to dry on one, unless there's another to carry on with.
I thought I had painted the last autumn rose, but as the trees release their final golden offerings of the season, there is a whole new flush of buds and blossoms overlooking the icy swimming pool. I made a 'value' pencil sketch out there, and took a photo, and picked a rose to bring back to my studio on the other side of the house, and tried to paint the scene both freely and with an eye to composition, value, rythym etc.
I feel I am making progress! It was jolly hard work for much of the day and I was exhausted afterwards, (plus we had an unruly night with the cat tossing a rat around the kitchen, frightening the dog and keeping us all awake!) but I want to keep it up today before my thoughts on how to go about it are scattered again like those autumn leaves...

Fast fast slow

This is the view from the glass doors of my little studio - it was another glorious autumn day and actually a pleasure to be outside hanging up washing and instead of going back inside, I went into the studio and sketched the washing. The big dark shadow it threw interested me, so I painted that again. I have vague plans for this piece of garden including herbs, flowers, arches and water, but it has to also contain the washing line - there is just no other place for it...
I really need to slow down on my watercolour painting, or at least spend more time planning it. I'm not really getting past this sketchy stage - very impatient to get everything down as fast as possible. I want to keep a loose fresh quality, but also be a bit more accurate with the information - those trees in the background of the first one are just scribbled. After this I started drawing my paintbrushes perhaps to send in for Vivien Blackburn's project... very painstakingly and slowly to train myself to look more and slow down. Now that I've re-read her challenge, I see it's sketching your paintbrushes, so perhaps I should hurry it up again. Sigh.

Roses are Red

I've been inspired to paint red roses again after reading Ronell's incredibly romantic story on African Tapestry last week - life has only just got back to it's usual rythym, so I've found a couple of hours. Red roses are hard to paint in watercolour, and keep them fresh and glowing. They look so paintable and inviting, then cause you all sorts of problems. The two above I did after a watercolour workshop, where we learned the glazing technique of layering wash over dry wash until you get the intensity you want (on the right), and very washy wet into wet on the left (on the background and wrapping paper). The layered one looks overworked, and the other rather underdone on the flowers - need to find a happy medium here! So I picked the last rather battered autumn red rose this morning - we've been plunged into cold, gusty-windy winter all of a sudden - and tried again, trying to stay loose, but I am out of practise... it happens so quickly!... so the first attempt was rather solid, top right, the second a bit better, though as I finished the sun came streaming in and backlit it so it looked quite exquisite and completely different. Glad to be painting again though, seems like an age since I did!

Light relief

I haven't been doing anything new of my own, but still very busy on the 'group' project . Things have been a bit blue and heavy going lately so I'm putting this complementary-to-blue summery poppy picture up (even though we're moving well into autumn here), in case anyone pops in and is giving up on me. This is a big - about 1200 x 800cm - oil painting that someone commissioned last year - he very specifically wanted poppies of all colours, shapes and sizes, therefore any horticultural experts out there who might be puzzled at the varieties of species all growing together in the same patch and time, give me a bit of artistic licence, if you will. I hadn't painted flowers in oils before, not being a great fan of the genre, and had no idea how to go about it - especially on such a large scale! I gathered hundreds (or scores probably...) of pictures from magazines and internet, it being this time of year and not a poppy to be found, and placed flat blobs of colour around the canvas as an underpainting, before working in the background and then each individual blossom. I'm not entirely happy with it... it looks a bit like wallpaper to me, but Tom is, fortunately, and it really dominates his living room!

Seasons come and seasons go

Two pages from my sketch journal… 5 months ago when the colours in the garden were turning from heavy, thick green to all the autumnal shades. My nephew Tristan and his wife Anna had just had a baby boy in London. That seems only weeks ago, but the garden is already bursting out of its winter browns, baby Henry has moved to Australia with his mum, dad and big brother, and I have done very little painting and sketching in the meantime.
I am in awe of expert blogger Katherine Tyrell, who writes her informative and inspiring ‘Making a Mark’ blog so regularly, as well as keeping her many Squidoo lenses going AND doing what look like pretty intricate and time consuming coloured pencil paintings. It takes me hours just to read a couple of my favourite art blogs, keep up with some of the links she posts, post my irregular little contributions here and occasionally dash off a new sketch in my journal. This ‘Spring’ one was done in hasty and economical line one day – the 6th of September – and coloured some days later, peering at the scene from the window as I didn’t seem to have the time to go outside with my paints and do it properly – and only posted today, a week later (the pink blossoms have already fallen off). We’re all busy, but some people seem to just fit way more into their day than others.
I think for now, ‘A Sketch in Time’ has to be more about pictures than words – it takes me so long to compose a little bit of writing, I am definitely out of practice - but making more art is my main aim, so for the meantime that is where I’ll try and focus.