The Pets

A not very good drawing of our dog and cat, who love each other very much and curl up in all sorts of combinations. Kenzo the Kat does have one flopped-over ear, that isn't just bad drawing!

Watching poppies grow

Here are two very satisfying pages from my journal - not so much the drawings, but the fact that I actually planted the seedlings, which I don't always get around to, and they came up so magnificently. I've had poppies in my house for three weeks now, with new buds forming constantly. These should remind me to keep on sowing and reaping - the rewards are great! The Easter eggs are still hanging around my middle, and my son's shoes lying on the sitting room floor, provoking housewifely grumbles, will maybe one day bring waves of nostalgia for the good old days.

A holiday in France

Here are some pages from my journal I kept on a wonderful painting holiday in France a year ago - the writing's mainly about the food, but the drawing 'notes' helped me to really be there with the details. My book is quite messy, with bits of paper stuck in it, and watercolour swatches sploshed around, but it brings back the whole experience. I drew with a Pilot fineliner, and a damp brush over it to make grey/blue washes. I couldn't really add more colour without washing all the line drawing away, but I like the looseness of the water-soluble pen. It is easy and inspiring to keep a journal on a great holiday, but very hard at home with the mundane day-to-day stuff. When you look back, though, at 'mundane' drawings of years gone by, they are the stuff of which memories are made and just as valuable, even more so, when it's your family, pets, homes you have preserved.

A quick sketch

This drawing is one of the reasons I want to really make myself take the everyday opportunities that present themselves to look, take note and record people, places and events. It so clearly recalls for me the time and the feeling of being there, with my Dad, since passed away, and my baby son, now sixteen and of course a world away from the little new person he was then. We were waiting for Bruce, my husband, to arrive at the airport in East London (SA) where my dad lived, and he had just phoned to say he had missed his flight. A bit of tension in the air, wondering when we'd have to venture into the night. Reading, drawing, to pass the time - and how precious it is to me now, this casual sketch.

Here we go

This is a little painting I did I while ago of koeksusters, a traditional South African/Afrikaans cake. I plan to do a 'Sketch in Time' as often as possible - a sketch in time saves nine... nine days or weeks or months - or years! - of regretting not putting it down at the moment. It almost seems too late to be starting this - babies have grown up and left home, holidays have come and gone, but I think until I have the hang of this blog thing, I will post some of the old stuff hanging around. At the moment, I can't see how I'll have the time to do daily(ish) sketches AND handle all this technology, but I guess I'll get used to it and become incredibly prolific.

Begin at the beginning

Whew, OK - I have taken the brave step of creating a blog! This is mainly to encourage myself to sketch/paint/draw regularly, and to share the results with whoever may be interested. I have been inspired by other blogging artists (thank you Danny Gregory, Katherine Tyrrell and others) and I hope in turn, and in time, will inspire others too. I have to work out how to - well, just about everything, so I hope nobody actually looks at this until it's really up and running and I'm not feeling so extremely uncertain about it all.