Resolutions for a new sketchbook

I found this little nest in our garden last week and drew it with dip pen and sepia ink, in a lovely new A5 sketchbook that my nice nephew brought me from the Tate. I want to be quite consistent in medium and subject matter in this book, but annoyingly, before I'd decided this, I started on the first page with a watercolour sketch (below) - not a great one, and the paper doesn't suit w/c well. Also annoyingly, I wrote in the notation on the nest page that it was built on stalks of the jacaranda flowers, when it's the leaf stalks that are falling like rain right now. Will I ever have a neat and ordered showpiece sketchbook? Concentrate Catherine!

How to Sketch Crowds

This post is in response to a couple of comments, asking that I reveal all on How to Sketch Crowds. It's been a novel and slightly daunting experience trying to formulate what has come about through years of trial and error, and the good old 3 P's - practice, practice, practice - in my case both voluntary and imposed (when I was required to draw anything, fast, on demand as a junior 'renderer' in the ad industry way back when...)
Katherine Tyrrell has also done comprehensive posts on drawing people and people while eating - forgive me if I repeat some of what she's said - it probably means that's a pretty good point to remember!

First I'll presume that you're very familiar with drawing single figures and faces before you get to the crowds... lots of life-drawing, your family or friends in front of the TV, etc. Figures and faces from the side, front, top, three-quarter, back, sitting, slouching, smiling, frowning... Observation is a lifelong exercise that never ends - I'll stare at someone's foot, taking mental notes of how it looks from the front, or how a mouth curves when facing up and laughing... it's why I sometimes don't hear what you're saying to me, but also why I think I've got better at drawing over the years!

OK. Crowds. I start with one figure - generally around the centre foreground. I might start with sketchy pencil lines like this --> to vaguely place the figures, especially if there's perspective involved, but not always. I've numbered them more or less as I'd start and finish. If there are structure/s around which people are arranged, like chairs, tables, pillars, indicate them to give you a point of reference for size and position. Not too much detail on those - you can add that later if you want to.

With these at the licensing department I sketched in pencil and added pen and watercolour afterwards at home, but keeping, as much as I could, the spontaneous feel - I wished soon after I started, that I had gone straight in with pen, but it was one of my first attempts at a crowded room, so I was a bit wary. And I didn't know I would have so much time to draw!I don't worry about getting the right people in the right places - who would know? - in this situation, every ten to fifteen minutes the queue of people got up and shifted 5 or 6 seats along, so the next person I drew would be relative to the first, but wasn't necessarily the person that was sitting next to them at the time.
I drew the head and shoulders of this guy (1), and the line got up and moved, so I left his lower half until a suitable body came along to complete the figure. The owner of the hands filling in his forms (2) actually had his head (with long, floppy hair if I remember correctly) bent right over them, but added onto my original head, they're just paused in their writing task.
A note on hands - don't stress over them, if they're the right size and vague shape, they'll register as 'hands' - don't get into counting fingers as I used to do!
I'll continue with figures to the left and right of my first one, front to back - I like to do two or three character sketches, just because I enjoy people's faces, especially if there are interesting expressions, hats (3), hairdo's (4) and so on. Then I fill in the gaps between the main players...whatever can provide some interest to a sea of heads and shoulders, I look out for and put in. A hand gesture to the face (5) a yawn, a stretch - anything to add mood or liveliness to a scene.

In this Food Court sketch I think I started with the girl with the ponytail, as she was a 'safe' distance away not to notice. The woman on the right arrived and smiled and laughed continuously the whole time she was there, but by the time I got to her daughter, I think it was that she was talking to, they were moving off, so she's smiling and chatting to a total
stranger who sat down there next, and gulped his food so fast I only just got him down in time!

In this sketch of a moving, singing, dancing choir, I started with the central figure of the choir-leader - I went straight in with my fine pen (0.2 unipin) - don't worry if lines overlap or if you do some 'wrong' lines - it all adds to the impression of movement and action, and might help in developing your own special signature style. I picked out just one figure that I had a good view of and sketched them doing whatever it was at the time - the one to the right of the conductor dancing, the next clapping, then to the gaps in between, going back row by row and filling in - again, nobody will know or care if you left somebody out or put someone in a different place, as long as they are more or less in proportion to each other.

As for colour - I mostly add it later at home, unless I have unlimited time and space, don't mind who's watching and have all my equipment to hand, which isn't often - in fact it's usually from the shelter of my car that I occasionally paint people on the spot. Sometimes I'll pencil in colour notes to remind me, as in the second pencil sketch - sometimes one or two striking colours serve to highlight a figure or group. With the choir, they were all in black but I used blue to enliven the darks, and their spotted scarves to further convey their energy and sparkle.

I hope you find this helpful, Linda, and any other interested parties - it was Cathy of Cards and Stuff who commented "I'm amazed at how many people you can sketch !! And the sketches seem to have been done calmly... Are people sitting nicely still for you to sketch them or what? ;-) What's your magic trick?" No, I'm definitely not always calm Cathy, and they don't sit still, but hopefully this explains some of my process, which undergoes reviews constantly, so check back!

My walking map!

View Walk around the dam in a larger map

Blogger didn't want to let me write about this yesterday when I put this map up - but now I've managed to find the cursor! Some of the Sketchercisers, as well as Urban Sketchers have been making maps of their 'stamping grounds' and its been fascinating to see exactly where they sat to sketch a particular tree, or boat, or bit of forest. This is my regular walking route, though I have variations, round Emmarentia Dam - if you click on the balloons you can see the sketches I've made at various points. It's easier than I thought to make one, and Google maps has very clear directions in their Help section if you want to have a go (click on My Maps to start...)!

*Now it doesn't seem to want me to have this text in a bigger size font...>;-/

Rock pigeon tree

We are having stirrings of Spring at last, after a long, relentlessly cold winter. One of the first signs is when the ash trees that have been planted all along our street pop out their little pom-poms of yellowy green fluff, and the indigenous rock pigeons descend from their rocks (I presume) and come to feast on what is apparently their favourite food. In the early mornings and evenings these branches that lean over into our garden from the pavement are crawling with the grey, black and white spotted birds, until some rude noisy dog or person frightens them away. I'm not sure why they disappear during the day, but it may have to do with the bees that take over as the sun rises - the whole tree starts humming!
I drew these ones from my kitchen window where they couldn't see me watching them at fairly close quarters - I had to put their bright yellow beaks, eyes and feet in, but it makes them look a bit like cartoon birds. I used water-soluble graphite, watercolour, gouache and 2B pencil to try and get all the features of bird and tree, and didn't really succeed at all - more practice required!

This morning I went to an art book launch in town and sketched a little bit - you can see it over on Urban Sketchers if you will...

New Toys

It's Winter Sale time in Joburg - including the art supply shops (all two of them), so I've been replacing watercolours and oils that are running low, but I succumbed to temptation and bought a box of 24 Derwent Inktense watersoluble pencils. I think I'll be using them 'in the field', though on the pamphlet they have some very finished-looking pieces. I sketched my son's ID photo that was lying around on my table, and immediately liked the loose mark-making combined with, as the name suggests, intense colour when washed over with the trusty waterbrush. (Ignore please the squiff eye levels and the skew nose - it has been broken since the photo was taken, but even now it's not as bent out of shape as this!)
Then I tried the orchid that miraculously blooms outside our front door, in spite of little attention from it's owner (our eldest daughter) or us. It's a cold, shady spot in which cymbidiums, this orchid and a pot of cyclamens just thrive in, come frost or heatwave. The crayons are a bit too intense for these delicate colours - a very pale pink and white, with deep magenta spots, and I (once again) made the shadows too murky - but I think they'll be great for quick outdoor studies. Once dry, the colour is permanent and you can work over it with other colours or media without disturbing the wash - lots of possibilities!

Memes and memories

I was awarded the Kreativ Blogger Award by Maree Clarkson, who lives not too far away from me, and is a new, welcome addition to my list of South African bloggers (I hope we can get together for some plein air painting sometime, Maree!)
As you know, with these awards - or memes I heard from Jeanette they're called - you're supposed to list seven things about yourself - which I have done before and don't want to repeat... so let my mind amble off in all sorts of directions, and I did some doodles, and had some flashbacks and spent far too much time on this, but its been fun, and hope it's fun to look at.

First of all did you know that...

(1) I have my own personal French* Chef who cooks magnificent meals for me, and whoever else is a la maison - with unflagging energy, creativity and enthusiasm.
*Well, he did a year at Alliance Francaise and practices a lot on his French-speaking customers, so speaks more than most people that I know.

(2)I have a weird semi-phobia about phoning people - I want to, and mean to and am very happy when they phone me, but to actually dial, is a major hurdle to overcome...

(3) I love cricket (I know, I've said that one before) - to watch that is, not to play - you can hear my French Chef chuckling to himself as he manned the camera in this little video clip that I found from when our son was about 7 and bowling...Then, my mind strayed back in time to some distant memories - I note with dismay that I appear rather bad-tempered or ungracious in most of them - I hope that I've mellowed since then!

(4) I got Honours from the Royal Academy of Ballet, in the then Rhodesia, for the one and only ballet exam I ever did at age 8, for which my mom made me a beautiful pink tutu. A few weeks later, my cute, red-haired little sister was chosen to present flowers to Lady Bird Johnson at the Bulawayo Museum, where our Mom worked as an artist, and who had then to make her a beautiful green tutu... I was incensed with rage and jealousy. I know now that I would probably have collapsed into a bashful ball of blushes and tears, and Gillian carried it off with sweetness and light, but oh, it was a bitter pill to swallow!

On to some early Drawing memories!...

(5)In Bulawayo, nobody thought I was any great shakes at drawing - I remember looking and looking at faces and wanting to draw them in what I now know to be a three-quarter view, where the eyelashes, and parts of the lids and sometimes even the eyeball protrudes into space, but did I succeed at this quest? Emphatically not, said my best friend...





(6) And I tried a bit of anatomically correct drawing of 'a lady' - earnestly and seriously following the curved contours, and was outraged that my classmates put such a lowly, base spin on my carefully observed work of art...







Then we moved to Cape Town, and after being used to stern derisory criticism of my artworks, suddenly...

(7) I was the main 'drawerer' in the class! I had never had such recognition, and was completely unprepared for the demand for my efforts. A pile of assorted papers grew huge on the seat next to me - that my classmates brought and demanded to be filled with their requests - which to my memory I never did, probably offending some for the rest of primary school...


Well - not exactly earth-shattering revelations... but I was thinking when I recalled the last three that I'd love to hear other people's early memories and experiences of their art or drawing beginnings - whether they put you off or spurred you on, so let your minds wander back, and let me know...in the comments or on your blogs!

Now I'm supposed to pass it on...um, so many creative bloggers, so many awards... I think this time I pick
Ginny Stiles- A lively, busy artist who shares her interests generously
Charlene Brown - a sketchercise buddy who writes and paints beautiful light-filled pictures in British Columbia
Robyn Sinclair-another sketchercise bud who is currently making a very lovely series of the Tuscany landscape
Jana Bouc - always creative, always amusing and always worth a visit
Helen Percy Lystra - lovely poured paintings and fascinating frames

I'm going to leave it there - I have spent far too long on the computer again, and I know many who I would give this to, have it already...if any of these nominees want to 'pass' - there's no obligation from my side - just an appreciation...

One more thing!... Coop of Essex left a comment the other day to ask if anyone would be interested in making an Artist Trading Card (2.5 x 3.5 inches) with a portrait of Frankenstein on it and sending it to him - he's collecting them for an online gallery, and maybe to exhibit in a real gallery later... sounds like fun and there are some great entries over on his blog. I might get to that - after complaining about rushing through too many things!

Two years and running

Yesterday was this blog's second anniversary, and I was planning to put something bright and beautiful up to celebrate, but nothing's going quite right here at the moment. Besides infuriating tangles with officialdom and red tape (I'm feeling great sympathy for the chap who held up a Home Affairs office until they issued him with an ID document that he had been waiting for for ten years!) it's turned from cold, to cold and wet, stymieing my plans to sit in the garden and paint these determined daffodils that have raised their cheerful heads in spite of the weather.

So I took a photograph and decided to try out, at last, the sheet of yupo that Rhonda sent me. I set about on my usual way of wet watercolour with loose brushstrokes... whoa!... things didn't go the way I was expecting them to at all. It is a whole new ballgame, and my rushed, impatient manoeverings of paint on the slippery surface produced some horrible mud. I badly need to go to some of Sandy Maudlin's workshops, be sat down and told to relax, take it slowly, investigate and take advantage of the special qualities which yupo patently has. The image on the left was taken before I added darks to the petals to show their forms, which was such a disaster that I've cropped it to a small section that wasn't quite as awful as the rest - I don't want my blog-birthday post to be ugglesome now do I!?

Actually, this exercise has demonstrated clearly to me that I am rushing through far too many things, especially as far as painting goes, lately. The positives that have come from A Sketch in Time have been so many - the community I've met, the sharing and exchanging of ideas and a common passion, the incentive to go out and draw/paint/sketch instead of... not, the examining and discovery of what really interests me and what doesn't, but, although it's now living up to its name far more now - lots more sketches of the moment and fewer old works - it's all got a bit frantic. So if I have a resolution for the next year of A.S.I.T. it's to slow down, take time to get lost, and hopefully found again - you'll be seeing how it goes!