Too much purple?

 You might be getting sick of these trees by now, but on Saturday we went up a high hill - to where the University of Johannesburg's (UJ) soccer fields are - and the jacarandas were just everywhere. I'm always puzzling as to how to paint them, this time I used a small sea sponge to try and capture their light, airy quality.

It seems a waste to designate these sweeping views of the city and suburbs to playing fields, but I guess if there were hotels and private homes up there, it would be a lot harder to access them. As it was we had to get permission from the university - luckily one of our regular sketchers is a professor there, so no problem.

We sat just below one of Joburg's two iconic towers, the Sentech (previously Brixton) Tower, and looked out towards the other one, the Hillbrow Tower, in the middle of about the densest, diciest area of town. Brixton Tower (left) used to have a restaurant at the base, and a viewing deck, and Hillbrow had a revolving restaurant at the top, but both were closed down in the turbulent Eighties, in case they became a target for guerilla attacks. Those were the days when we were searched or scanned going into any public space or shopping centre, afraid of our own shadows and sure that calamity and civil war were around the corner. Hard to remember that, sitting up there in peaceful shade, students who would never have been allowed the opportunity to study here in those days, cheerily greeting us as they walked past.

A footnote: I was asked about the colours I used to get the purple - I use Winsor & Newton almost exclusively as it's easily available here - and it is mainly Winsor Violet in different concentrations, lifted and dabbed with the sponge to lighten it, with touches of Permanent Rose here and there.  I added Viridian Green to the W.Violet in the shadowy bits, the two combined make lovely greys - and touches of Smalt, or Du Pont's Blue, which was a free trial tube I got some years ago. I love the way it granulates on the paper, I think if I did a big painting of jacarandas I would use it with Permanent Rose to help create the texture of the massed flowers - hope it's still available! Here is a strip of these colours:

That Jacaranda Time again

This seems to come around faster and faster every year - jacaranda blossom time. They aren't as spectacular as usual in Johannesburg, perhaps because we've had early rains and I think the flowers need a little stress to perform really well - perhaps like all of us. I was not too stressed, it was a lovely sunny morning and I met three sketcher friends in a tranquil side street in Westcliff where we spent a relaxed couple of hours. I did exaggerate the purple, it was there, but sparsely scattered - hard to paint without getting finicky. I started with the bottom one in my watercolour Moleskine with rather a fat brush - a Van Gogh goats hair one that I 've loved for years but which has now lost its point and is losing its hair. 
I switched to some long neglected Caran d'Ache Neocolor II watersoluble crayons which I've never mastered (but haven't spent much time trying). With only 12 basic colours, the middle one is startlingly vivid where I put in street signs, bougainvillea, some yellow and orange  flowers and a bit of a jacaranda - I reined myself in a bit on the last top one of Alan and Marlene sitting picturesquely under the trees.
Previous posts on jacarandas are here, here, here and here if you're interested.

New Chinatown

For the 37th Worldwide Sketchcrawl, Joburg Sketchers went to 'New' Chinatown - old Chinatown in the city centre has fallen into dilapidation, but in the suburb of Cyrildene, a busy, thriving community has sprung up over the last few years. Fantastically fresh vegetables spill out onto the pavements, grown in the gardens of the surrounding houses - and tea shops, restaurants, fishmongers, hairdressers, Chinese massage and therapy studios, supermarkets full of strange, unidentifiable products, so much to draw. A good turnout of seven, we started on the veggie shop near our meeting point, then trickled up the road finding other viewpoints. We met up for lunch at 'Northern Chinese Restaurant', a humble looking place, but with delicious, plentiful and very reasonable food. We should have kept it for last - we all ate far too much, sketching after that was a bit slow and most of us felt the need to go home for a little nap soon after.

Nia Dancing

While I'm not quite ready for any of the extreme activity I tried to portray in these sketches, I'm at least able to look at them again without wincing. Thank you for all the well wishes here and elsewhere, I appreciate them all so much and am recuperating steadily!

This was a Nia dancing 'jam' held at moyo restaurant at Zoo Lake on the first day of Spring last month. Barbara, Anni and I went along for some more action sketching. All and sundry were invited to join this stretching, energising class after the torpor of winter and we on the sidelines were tempted to discard our sketchbooks and join in, it looked so much fun. It was fun to sketch too, once we'd (well, I) got over stage fright - we were welcomed to come in, watch and sketch and the dancers seemed to appreciate us appreciating their agile creativity.

I've been asked again for tips on drawing moving figures so I've tried to analyse what I did here. It does differ with the amount and pace of movement - this was very fast in comparison to the Tango lesson of two posts ago, where the same actions were repeated over fairly slowly so I had more time to study the shapes of arms, legs, backs etc.

• Remember, none of these are definitive captures of a single pose or body position, as in a snapshot. They are the results of watching the movements of a group, scribbling down fleeting impressions of, for instance, outstretched arms, then watching some more and adding a torso, fitting it to what's been put down, looking again to catch a leg position - perhaps from your original subject, perhaps from somebody else who has moved into your field of vision - attaching as logically as possible to what's happening in the rest of the figure.

• Clothing, hair, head gear or scarves can help to create the impression of movement, flowing wavy lines or creases across a torso describing a sideways stretch or a swooping lunge.

• Try and relax into the movement of  your pen or brush - this may only happen deep into your sketching session - allow it to dance lightly around your page. I sometimes find myself 'conducting' the music in the air with my brush before lowering it to the page and constraining it into body shapes while keeping some of the swirling, twirling motion of my baton.

• Feel within your body the music, the rhythm, the big shapes of the dancer's bodies as well as the smaller ones of hands and feet - see this sketch with arms stretching upwards - by no means accurately drawn hands, but imitating the many fingers flickering together in the air. If you look at some of the individual limbs, hands and feet I've sketched, there are some weird shapes and renditions, but as a whole, give the impression of movement, stretches, lunges, etc.

• To analyse and store in your 'memory bank' some of the postures bodies can get into during sport or exercise, try pausing your TV during a programme like 'So You Think You Can Dance' (a favourite of mine!) and sketch what you see, you'll be surprised at the odd shapes limbs can get into in the middle of a pas de deux!

Does all of that make sense?... probably not, but I hope it helps somebody, somewhere, somewhat! Do let me know if so.

...Aaa..a..nd rest!!

Delta Park

On Saturday only John and I turned up to sketch at Delta Park on a cold, overcast and windy day. I could understand why, but I do think we're a bit wimpy when I see sketchers out in midwinter, in places like Sweden and Canada! We had more of a plein air session than urban sketching, as John had his oil paints and I made myself slow down a bit, after a lot of rather frantic fast sketching lately. I wished I'd taken proper watercolour paper - I had only sketchbooks with me, one being a watercolour Moleskine which I used for this long format painting. I had planned to have lots of the yellows and blues I used evident but it ended up looking, once again...green and brown. In spite of the weather it was good to be out - I finished off with a little sketch of John painting in the bleak winter landscape (ignoring his complaints that I should choose another subject!).

NeighbourGoods Market

 For the 36th Worldwide Sketchcrawl, four of our group went to the NeighbourGoods Market in Braamfontein, where Joburgers go in their hundreds every Saturday to buy from: (off their website) 'local farmers, fine-food purveyors, organic merchants, bakers and distributors, grocers, mongers, butchers, artisan producers, celebrated local chefs, and micro enterprises'.

 A freezing cold front blew in that morning, so I started sketching from the relative shelter of a canvas awning - the hat and accessories stall inside, then turned on my chair to draw the hardy souls outside on the rooftop balcony overlooking Braamfontein.

 Downstairs to join the others, Anni, Marlene and Alan for a delicious lunch and to carry on sketching - the two girls above, and the one in the bright jacket below, took photos of my sketches of them - thankfully quite happy with their portrayals!

 The queue for this paella began forming as the two cooks started a new batch, and waited patiently until it was ready. It was all gone within minutes -  must have been good!

 This tall, slim woman in her black and white skirt caught my eye as she stood in front of the tall, slim cake stands full of black and white wrapped cupcakes.

Which I couldn't resist buying two of (Red Velvet and Bar-One - yum!) to take home for my last sketch of the day, before sharing them with my son - my husband's will power standing firm as mine crumbled!

Shepstone Gardens

On Monday a group of us went to Shepstone Gardens, a Heritage site and a busy wedding and events venue. It is a whole conglomeration of stone constructions - houses, chapels, pathways, walls, a garden shed and a studio, commissioned by the Modderfontein Dynamite Company and built around the turn of the century by Afrikaners after the Anglo Boer War - from 1 000 tons of quartz rock. Apparently Mahatma Gandhi stayed on and off in the encampment at the foot of the ridge, while his friend, the architect Kallenbach was building.

The first sketch I did there is on its way as a postcard in the Postcards from my Walk project, so I won't show it yet. (my last one never reached its destination in California, so holding thumbs for this one!)

I had another prepared splashy watercolour sheet in my sketchbook and the blues and browns fitted well into the shape of the wedding chapel, so that was my next subject.

There was a little boy looking like he needed something to do (he was on school holidays and his dad was working in the Gardens) on the lawn next to me so I offered him a sketchbook and pencil, which he shyly but eagerly accepted. He told me his name was Gift, and he spent the next hour or more drawing intently - watching me looking up and down and sketching, and then following suit. I think he indeed has a gift, to be so young - in Grade 2 so not more than 6 or 7 - and concentrate for so long on his carefully observed drawing. I left him my pencil, I think I'll go back with a sketchbook - a possible young urban sketcher/artist/architect in the making!

Fête de la Musique

Last Saturday we went to sketch at the French Fête de la Musique in Melville, where 7th Street was closed to traffic, restaurants and cafés overflowed their tables, chairs and sofas outside into a beautiful warm, sunny day and a free and easy atmosphere took over as three large dancing puppets started the festivities.

I thought there was to be a brass band and had prepared a sketchbook sheet at home with watercolour washes to draw over - thinking the yellow splashes would be a good base for a brass band to burst forth from into the blue. Well there was no brass band and the puppets pranced past so quickly, I hardly squiggled down their outlines before they and the drummers behind them disappeared down the road. I'm feeling the urge to sketch in different mediums lately - this first technique was more successful than others...

 ...my next sketch (above) I tried Carioca markers in a sketchbook that didn't allow them to wash and spread with water as I intended, so onto different paper that did... as did the disposable Pilot Vpen, which I love using for its watersoluble properties, but hard to control on the trot.

I managed to capture my daughter (with her back to me, above) a proud new resident of Melville, then I pulled out my Pentel Pocket Brushpen for a few more figures as they dashed past - so much activity, this was not a relaxing sketching experience! Perhaps when I go sketching I should just take one pen with me to stop myself trying to use everything in my artillery and feeding my indecisiveness and confusion.

Having lost the other sketchers in the crowd, I joined my family for lunch in a Mexican café, fitting in another sketch while waiting for the food to arrive. I had done a fair sketch of my daughter's fiancé - a good likeness, dark in tone against the light outside - but later at home I thought I'd 'fix' it and really messed it up, saturating the paper with uncontrollably bleeding colours and pens, dabbing didn't help and I lost his face completely. Lesson: do not fiddle with sketches after the fact!

A last sketch before home, rather wishing I was younger, trendier and more energetic to carry on eating, drinking, sketching and listening until late to the great variety of music pumping from every doorway up and down the street.

Melville Koppies

Just up the hill from my house, is a heritage site, Melville Koppies Central, where Stone and Iron Age artefacts have been discovered and preserved. It's not generally open to the public, but they have Open days for walkers and hikers, birding days, and for the first time last Saturday, a sketching, painting and photography day. John, Anni and I jumped at the chance to spend a morning in this wild spot of nature in the middle of Joburg, and we really felt as if we were out in the bush, apart from distant sounds of traffic and boys playing soccer down at Marks Park.

 I had planned to move around, sketching from the top of the koppie, down to the forested area lower down, but ended up sitting at the same spot, just turning my chair around to face South, then East, and finally North, before two of the hardworking custodians of the site, Wendy and John came to tell us they were locking up. I became fascinated with the thatching grass all around me - long and dry in the middle of winter, at first it seemed a uniform blond ochre, the more I looked, the more colours I saw. Pinks, golds, mauve and blue, shots of luminescent green - impossible to put them all in without drawing each stalk individually - and glimpses of the city looking soft and gentle through the waving strands  - I felt I could paint there for weeks on end.

We've been told we can go back and paint when the Birders are there - really look forward to another escape to the country - so close by!

Johannesburg City Library

 Joburg Sketchers went to the newly renovated and revamped Public Library in the city on Saturday. We had an anxious start with parking hassles and misunderstandings, and then in the library some of us being told we weren't allowed to sketch there... but after some negotiations it was all sorted out - we've evn been invited back to give a workshop! The library is beautiful, restored to its former glory and more.

There were lots of concientious students using the reading and reference rooms. I did a quick sketch of the huge windows with a floating level halfway down them, then looked down to some people working below - of course as soon as I started on the guy (that is a guy!) on the right he began packing up to go. It was a freezing cold day, and though some of the library is heated, swinging doors let icy blasts through every room, so many of the readers kept their coats and hoodies on.

Fingers freezing, I did a very fast sketch of one of two enormous, ornate book presses in the entrance foyer, the coldest room of all while waiting for the others to finish. I thought that my Pentel Pocket Brushpen wasn't working very well on the paper I had, but discovered when I got home that it had run out of ink - darn! It gave me some interesting textures I guess. We found a fast-food place nearby to have coffee, a bite to eat and look at everyone's sketches. You can see most of them here on Facebook.

Spear March

Today a march was held in Rosebank, quite near to where I live, to protest against the Goodman Gallery displaying a "derogatory" painting of the president. I thought that I should be brave and go and do some reportage sketching, though was pretty sure I'd safely chicken out at some stage. But I told my sketching friend Anni about my thought, and she was very enthusiastic, saying she'd meet me around 12... and so there we were!

At first there were mostly mounted guards, riot police and ANC marshalls gathered around, which made me nervous enough, but I started drawing them from behind as they gazed expectantly up Jan Smuts Avenue. Then we heard singing and chanting in the distance, coming closer, the mounted police lined up and my heart beat even faster - but there were plenty of relaxed and jovial people milling around, including a cheerful looking ANC protester chatting on her phone on my left - so we carried on sketching as the street ahead filled up. Soon it was apparent that speeches and the odd "Viva" call were all that were on the agenda - it was to be a peaceful, restrained occasion, much to my relief.

When it looked like the main event was over, we walked around the block to see if we could get closer, and found ourselves weaving our way right through the thick of the protesters - all friendly and approachable, two women readily agreeing to sit for us (but don't put the picture in 'that' gallery, they said!) I wish I could have sketched faster and got lots more of the colourful outfits and lively characters. Almost back where we started, we had a last opportunity to sketch the flamboyantly dressed elders, leaders and politicians on the back of the broadcasting truck before the crowds dispersed and we headed for a much needed drink and some lunch.

Salvage Yard



I used my water-soluble Berol Karisma Graphite Aquarelle pencil for this sketch, with a touch of watercolour. I've had it for years and neglected it, lovely for quick tonal values but I need to get looser with it.



After a long break a small group of sketchers met up at Protector Build salvage yard in Honeydew - which used to be out in the sticks when I first came to Johannesburg, but is now a continuation of housing and industrial estates all along the long road North. We were a bit dismayed at first at the ugliness of our subject, but I soon got absorbed in the shapes and shadows of the piles of tiles and wood  - deconstructed homes presumably to be recycled into other people's houses by the men who were loading stuff into trucks and bakkies. I was really enjoying myself by the time I was on the last sketch - such a typical Joburg scene of dry wintry sun, long grass turned to gold (before the inevitable winter veld fires strike) and dusty road - and we were told they were locking up. I'll be happy to go back sometime to tackle the other piles of debris I didn't get to!