Talking of Walks

On Sunday was the annual Walk the Talk fundraising event where 50 000 people pound the pavements of Joburg, starting and ending about 500 metres from our house. Those who've been watching this blog since it's beginning (I know there are at least two of you ;-) will know that means that the second anniversary of A Sketch in Time is therefore coming around soon! I'm embarrassed to read on last year's post I did about the walk (this is the first one), I vowed that BFG and me would be partaking next year...ahem, coff, coff, we weren't quite feeling up to, er, registering in time, and when we were feeling fitter, well, um, it was just too late...darn! I'm ashamed that a declared Sketcherciser chickened out - again, but we went down to watch and encourage, with camera and sketchbook, and it was lots of fun. My sketch of the walkers isn't nearly as 'accomplished' as last year's - that's because I tried to do it live, on the spot, with no techno-aids... just impossible really, they all came at me so thick and fast.
So I gave up and we went to Mark's Park where the end-celebrations were taking place. I sat in front of the stage and started sketching a group, trying to get a view of the interesting looking befeathered and beskinned people sitting in it, and on the stage - Bongani who sang, and some wizard soccer-ball jugglers with drummers.

Then the people in skins jumped onto the stage and began some very high-energy, high-kicking, stomping and springing - they were a Zulu dance group, I don't know from where - perhaps Gold Reef City or some such tourist destination - we don't generally have Zulu warriors and maidens in full regalia strutting around the streets - I thought they'd dressed up for the walk, as many do.


After their spirited show a group of Tswana dancers went up - dressed in different skins, they did a much more restrained performance - it looked like a courting sort of dance with much flirting, pleading and spurning going on.

I sketched these in a very small A6 sketchbook - trying as always, to be inconspicuous, but a few people around noticed and came to have a look over my shoulder, making me feel embarrassed at the little squiggles I'd produced. They were improved after I'd added a bit of colour at home.


While I was busy trying to make a scribbled record of the day, my husband was having a whale of a time routing out some famous sportsmen who were donating their time and energy to the occasion and it's charities, and cajoling them to pose with him for his version of a brag book. Here he is with, from left to right, Michael Vaughan, the ex-England cricket Captain, 'Baby Jake' Matlala, our flyweight boxing champ, and Bafana Bafana soccer star/ex-Leeds United captain, Lucas Radebe. He already has pictures with many of the Springbok rugby team who he was overjoyed to find himself with, on a flight from Cape Town some time ago, and with whom he now identifies so strongly that the green-and-gold Springbok jersey is donned at every opportunity.

Acacia trees

I've been sketching exotic trees up till now - most of the trees at Emmarentia Dam and around the suburbs were imported from around the world and planted in an area that had few, if any indigenous trees a hundred and twenty or so years ago, being mostly Highveld grassland.
This morning I had a long wait in the car for my son, and was happy to find some acacia trees in the parking lot - I don't know their names, but someone once made an effort to have quite a variety of the species planted here, in an otherwise stark and industrial sort of area. So naturally I spent the time sketching them - boy, trees are difficult! I tried first with Pentel pen and watercolour, and then with just watercolour and the brushpen, which is a bit ungainly to render all those fine twiggy bits and feathery leaves. I meant to pick some of the leaves and pods to draw later at home, but forgot.
Instead I sketched the pods I picked up at the dam a few weeks ago, which I thought were from an African tree, but have since discovered are from a Honey-locust, which comes from North America. When I picked them up I described them as 'ebony', but actually they are rich shades of red and burgundy - I think I will be painting them again - better next time I hope, on proper paper with a proper brush. I'm getting a bit too reliant on that handy waterbrush!

Look at this beautiful poem sent to me by a dear friend, when she saw I was drawing trees...

'WHEN I AM AMONG TREES'
by Mary Oliver (from 'Thirst')

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
Equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would also say that they save me, and daily,

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
And call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
Into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

More trees

It never rains but it deluges - I sometimes don't have illustration work for months and years at a time, and then it arrives by the container-load! So I'm neglecting the blog a bit, and I'm sure it's very disjointed and erratic to read -I will get to posting about materials and process, as I've promised some of my visitors - just when I have time to engage brain and try and be logical, and methodical!

I am finding it essential to get out and move my limbs occasionally though, and happy to have the extra incentive of the tree challenge and sketchercise. It was -1°C when I got up this morning, so I did some work first, and then walked when the sun had thawed things out a bit. I sat and drew the base of a cork oak, couldn't resist adding the duck as he came poking his head round the side, and then added more and more around the tree-trunk - it was supposed to be a quick, simple study of the bark...

On the left is a corner of the neighbour's garden I did after vacuuming a few days ago - the only physical jerks of the day - as the sun was going down, so everything was getting more silhouetted by the minute. That was with a water-soluble felt pen and waterbrush - the cork oak was with water-soluble graphite and my little Cotman set in the small moleskine w/c notebook. That trunk base looks like a dinosaur foot, doesn't it?!

The Dog Park

My palette lately seems to consist of a lot of golds and ochres - but these are typical Highveld colours, sketched this afternoon near the entrance of 'the dog park' - the section of Emmarentia Dam where people are allowed to walk their dogs. I used to dislike this dry, almost bleached-looking scenery, but I've come to love the softness and subtlety of it - I think this is the first time I've tried a landscape on this theme, there is much more to observe and paint than I thought, and as always with plein-air, it changes constantly.

I tried to sketch a few of the hundreds of pooches that scampered past (and one owner)- of course all far too busy and quick to be caught accurately!

Some playtime

I have a little treasure, a present from a special blogfriend, that I've been waiting and waiting to play with after my work was done. Rhonda, of Watercolors and Words, when I wistfully wished I could try out some Yupo in her comments, kindly and generously went to the trouble of packing and sending me a piece so that I could decide whether I liked it enough to order a batch online! All the way from Kentucky! Isn't that amazing?
I said she had a heart of gold, and she replied, with her obvious bubbly nature, maybe that's why its been giving her a spot of bother lately - Rhonda I hope with all my heart that you return to the best of health quickly, you so deserve to, and Thank You!!!
I had trouble finding rubbing alcohol to clean it with (which I finally got yesterday, from a suspicious looking pharmacist - did he think I wanted to swig it?), but before that I just had to doodle on a small strip, fingerprints and all. I like the weird things that happen with the colours granulating and sitting on top of the surface, and the more intense colours that result from non-absorption - and the way you can lift it off easily if you want to, and move it around endlessly... I'm thinking up what to do on the big piece that's left - so fun.

I'm planning on going Sketching today, for the 23rd Worldwide Sketchcrawl, though for one reason and another I'm, so far, stuck in the house (but with my yupo :-) - I've registered with the site, but for some cookies/security/computer-innards reason I can't log in, but still, if I can I'll be getting out there.

Winter garden

Hello there! I'm back in the land of watercolours, trees, walks in the park... I think there are more work projects on the way, but for now... wheee! I must say discipline and deadlines do me good every now and then and I'm glad my 'work' is almost as much fun as my 'play'. Just so much of it at a time!
But this morning I got up, free as a bird, and put on my walking shoes and my new pedometer and went on my usual route around the dam - 5613 steps including an extra bit to the supermarket to buy some yoghurt to put on my breakfast. Only 220 calories burnt - a bit downcasting, but I'm not sure if I've set my new toy properly. I'll have to figure out a way that the walk at least cancels out the breakfast. I didn't stop and sketch, it was bracing to say the least, but when I got home I had a hot shower and sat in the sun in the garden to sketch the branches of our big jacaranda. As purple as the flowers are in early summer (see sketches here and here and oil paintings here) the foliage goes golden in winter before it all falls off - W&N Quinacridone Gold and Green Gold are the perfect match.

I very quickly sketched my neighbour's jacaranda to get a bit of distance on the subject - on the original Emmarentia farm rows of them were planted, along with avocado trees which you can still see dotted around. Tragically, lots of recent immigrés to the suburb are chopping down every big old tree on their new properties and building vast palaces and concreting what's left - what kind of mindset is that? Joburg, as I've mentioned before, has the biggest manmade Urban Forest in the world, but I don't know for how much longer at this rate!

The choir

Over a week since I've been here - I'm still nose to the grindstone and it feels like I've blended permanently into my computer chair, but on Sunday I went to church to listen to the Holy Cross Anglican choir of Soweto who came to sing for us. Warm, spine-tingling, deeply holy - hard to describe the feelings that this harmonious group engenders, from sorrowful to soaring joy. I sketched as I listened, but of course only one person at a time, so if I drew one person dancing and swaying, they were all dancing and swaying, or clapping or happy or sombre. Services in Soweto apparently go on for hours, unlike in the Northern suburbs, where everyone is impatient to get to their golf, or lunch, or Wimbledon on TV - so the choir had just warmed up, said Thandi the leader, when they had to wind it up for us - but a wonderful start to the week, in which there are yet more illustrations to be drawn... until next time!