Sketching Woes

Oh my, after a couple of weeks of slow, contemplative painting I went out this weekend for some fast on-the-spot sketching and was all at a loss as to where to begin, middle or end. Its scary how quickly the confident line escapes when not in daily practice! But for the sake of keeping the blog updated, I'll post some of my not-great sketches anyway, and hope to do some better ones soon.

I went to the Rose Gardens in the nearby park on Saturday - the early roses not quite out yet but lots of springily dressed young women, with many photos being taken on mobile phones of poses amongst the fountains and trees.

Yesterday I drove into the city, to Main Street Life, an 70's industrial building that is under refurbishment and together with Arts on Main down the road, is an island of art, good accomodation and cultural activity in an otherwise rather grubby, ugly part of Joburg. The rooftop of the building was the venue for a charity event, 1000 Drawings, where people are invited to draw or doodle on A5 paper to be sold on one night in November for R100 each regardless of artist or artwork. Excited to see the city so close, I had to try a cityscape sketch, and then turned to the other drawers - no one that I noticed was sketching the surroundings or people, most were bent over their own creations of  doodles and illustrations. I continued to struggle to get down a flowing, happy line, but by the last sketch, thought it was slowly returning to my faltering pen. Must not leave it in my bag for so long again!!

Night of a 1000 drawings

On Thursday evening my daughter and I went to the Night of a 1000 Drawings at the old Park Station in the city. I've been to 'new' Park Station before, to catch or meet trains to and from Cape Town, but I didn't even know about this old section to the south of it, abandoned and disused apart from the odd party event. I can find very little information about it, but I think it dates back to the Gold Rush. It is a magnificent building with soaring arches, beautiful wood and tilework, marble steps and pillars - I sincerely hope there are plans to restore and preserve it, though I can't find any reference to it on the net.
The event was great fun - the public had been asked to donate A5 drawings to be sold for R100 (less than £8 or $14) each on the night and the funds raised go to city charities. I only heard about it a day or two before, so didn't draw - next year! You had to buy envelopes with stickers, then peruse the drawings and choose the ones you liked, then at 7.30 there was a signal and a mad rush to put your sticker on your chosen artworks. There was some stiff competition for some of them - we got the ones we picked, though Dominique had somebody begging and pleading with her to part with her treasure.
As for my sketch... oh, buildings are a challenge for me!.. I found a nice secluded vantage-point but got confused with all the arches and what you could see through them, and completely overworked the watercolour. Those stars were projected onto the ceiling - it started pumping as the music got progressively louder but I was happy to depart with a sketch and my two purchases - I think the daughter would have liked to stay and party.

Drawing Day

Yesterday was Drawing Day... and I really didn't have much time to do it, but in between shopping and other essentials I stopped in at the wonderful Moyo restaurant at Zoo Lake, a favourite R&R place for Johannesburgers, for coffee and some quick pencil drawing... The restaurant owners promote and collect original contemporary African art, so around every corner are sculptures, mosaics, structures of wood, stone and metal... funky fountains and sparkling mirrored angels in amongst the trees and foliage.

Chairs and lighting come

in weird and wonderful designs

The waitresses wear bright feathered headdresses, flamboyant earrings and traditional looking aprons...

and the coffee was good...

Glad I got out there and joined in!