2008

Happy New Year! This is a little watercolour of jacaranda pods from our garden, and a carved elephant 'calendar' from Malawi - my wish for Africa that 2008 will be a year of peace, democracy and enough for everybody. Already that seems like a pipe-dream with today's news from Kenya, but this is not a political blog so...

My artistic goals (doesn't sound as clench-teethed as resolutions, nor as easy to discard after a week or two) for this year - I am pretty bad at organising my thoughts and tabulating them, but here goes...

1. To grow my blog - it has already had a profound effect on my productivity and commitment to learning more and making more art - so I want to post at least three times a week. Not quite ready to commit to every day yet.
2. To draw or paint something every day
3. To find more of a focus - I have tried so many mediums and styles - coming from a background in advertising rendering, where I had to be very versatile and compliant to others needs, I now would really like to discover my own artistic voice - it's been a long time coming!
4. To join up with other artists - a group or society - where there is sharing of ideas, interaction and feedback. I haven't managed to find one yet, though I belonged to the watercolour society, WSSA, once - it may have changed now, but was quite a hierarchical and intimidating organisation. I may have to start my own group..?

That's enough for now - I'm scaring myself! I also hope to travel a bit - probably just around beautiful South Africa, and perhaps Namibia which Bruce is very keen to go to.

My journal again

It's been a long time since I've done anything in my sketch journal, and there are not that many pages completed between last Boxing Day and this (though I've done more than in my entire life previously!). As I wrote above, it's a whole year since I discovered Danny Gregory, Everyday Matters, and the whole world of sketch journalling and art-blogging. I do feel quite reluctant to get to the end of this journal - a beautiful cloth-bound book I bought at the Tate in September '06. Wish I could get over there again to get a new one, not to mention of course another roam around the galleries and art shops, and another painting holiday... I will have to make plans to get to some interesting places to draw and paint next year, as well as some other art-related New Year's resolutions - will have to have a think about that. We went for a walk this morning around our local Emmarentia Dam. Jo'burg is so quiet and empty - everyone's gone to the coast, including our daughters. I think I will make plans in January for next Christmas so we don't feel all abandoned again, too!

Nostalgia trip

After looking at Adam's lovely drawings of his children, I decided to have a scratch around in my 'files' to look for the very few sketches I did of my children, way back when. They are faded and yellowing and I swear it was just the other day I drew them! These are of my son at 4 months and just 3, watching TV and eating breakfast - as Adam says, one of the few times, besides sleeping, that they are still enough to capture on paper. I didn't ever draw my eldest and first as a baby - I think I spent most of her babyhood just staring at her in awe. I know there's one somewhere of our baby 2nd daughter, and a few of them a bit older - I'll have to keep on scratching.

Papercut

Here is the wedding banner I was working on in the blog below - the wedding was wonderful, moving, and had many of us there determinedly holding back wild joyous sobs, as it was the 'happy second beginning' after long terribly rough times for both the bride and the groom. And the sun shone! - the only day it has for weeks before and ever since. What a cool wet summer we're having... those weaver birds were mistaken when building their nests so low (see previous post).
Anyway, after all that cutting, I haven't started my Christmas shopping - and it's our eldest's 27th (gulp) birthday tomorrow, and the house has spiralled down into chaos, so if I don't post for a while and anyone wanders into this blog, I wish you a very happy Christmas, Chanukkah or whatever it is you're celebrating - and a renewal of all your creative energy for the New Year!

Adorning the church

As December has suddenly lurched into reality, I've changed direction and focus once again to thinking about the 'adornment' of our church for Christmas. A friend is getting married there too in two weeks time, so I'm adding to the existing papercut hangings (which she and some other friendly hands helped me to cut some years ago) to make a wedding-theme banner to cover the bare back of the piano. The sketch above is work-in-progress - I am about to start the neck and shoulder straining task of cutting this morning. The motifs are basically of the Tree of Life, with God's hand reaching down as the roots, to the crossed hands of the man and woman within a circle/ring. On either side of the tree is a river, referring to Ephesians 5: 25- 33 about marriage, and I think I will add a wineflask or jug between the water and the vines as a reference to the wedding feast where Jesus turned the water into wine... never quite sure if my creative efforts are theologically sound, but so far noone has raised any objections!
I was inspired by the amazing work of Nancy Chinn, and her book 'Spaces for Spirit' to take the decoration of our little church beyond the usual candles and poinsettia - albeit on a much smaller scale. It is quite a commitment, and I do find it a little daunting to come up with new ideas for all the repeated seasons and festivals - pressures of The Artist in the congregation...

Now for something completely different

Here are a few of the illustrations I've been doing for my friend Jill's book - she and her daughter were bemoaning the fact that bible stories for children seem to be so drearily boring, so she wrote a little dotty poem about The Prodigal Son and asked me to draw the pictures. I've ended up illustrating just about every line, and really having fun doing it - taking some creative licence with what those old testament chaps would have had at their disposal - soccer balls and photographs were most certainly off their radar screens, as, in fact, were radar screens. She is taking it to try out on her two grandsons in Sydney, Australia next week, so I have to get a move on and get a mock-up made. If the little boys really love it, we might try and take it further...
Just playing around again with watercolour paint makes me think that it is my favourite medium - I love the unpredictable things it does, and the also the things that traditional w/c painters frown upon - the 'cauliflower' splodges and drips.

Ice-cream man

Here is the other painting I've done for my 'client'... her mother bought some of mine a few years ago - one that she loves of the ice-cream man, and one of a woman walking through this avenue - so I combined the two and hope that she will like this one. I didn't put in all the shadows that would fall on the figure - they are very dark at this time of year, and the picture is busy as it is, so he looks to me as though he's been juxtaposed, but he does provide a solid focal point I think.
I'm changing track completely today - I started illustrating a children's book for a friend about a year ago, and she is soon to go and visit her young grandchildren in Australia, so I want to finish it for her to take with her. So sploshy watercolours with pen & ink for the next while - I'm afraid I really am (the female arty equivalent of) Jack-of-all-trades, master of none!