Looking back

What a year, what a sketching, painting, writing, thinking, planning, travelling year! It may not have looked like it to you here, as I didn't quite keep up reporting on it all but when I look back... whew...
It was the year of:
  The incredible Lisbon Symposium
  The Postcard from my Walk exchange

The Art of Urban Sketching book - due to be launched world-wide in February, and in which Johannesburg, and I feature!

  The Dark Cloud - a fully-packed year long painting course

  A Don Andrews workshop

  Giving my own first workshops - first a sketching one here at home to practice for the symposium, and after much needless anxiety, the 'Urban Portraits' in Lisbon

  Trips all in a row to Zambia, Portugal and France

  The flourishing of the Joburg Sketchers group, which has gathered lots more participants and is in need of more efficient organisation and - dare I whisper it - another blog

While many would have taken all this in their stride and hardly blinked at all this activity, I have to admit to feeling wrung out towards the end of 2011. All the new experiences, commitments and schedules so different from my normal laid-back and pretty secluded lifestyle were a shock to my introverted system - happy and exciting, but still a shock. Keeping up my own postings, and with everybody elses on the art blogs, Flickr, Urban Sketchers and Facebook just got too much and I apologise again to everyone I neglected.

Looking back at the year in pictures from the postcard project is very satisfying. A record of the seasons turning in Joburg (apart from one done on holiday in Zambia), memories of who I was sketching for, when and where - after all the insecurities that we all seemed to share about producing cards 'good enough' to send - I approach the end of it with mixed feelings. The eagerly awaited postcards plopping through the letterbox took forever to arrive, while time to make another one to send, seemed to come round as soon as the last one was stamped and sent off. With three to go, I've stumbled and fallen behind with this too, but will catch up soon and show you my wonderful collection of cards from a lovely bunch of artists and friends from Sketchercise. In the meantime you can follow them all arriving to and from around the world here at Postcards from My Walk.
I'll be back with wishes for the New Year!

Happy Christmas!

 On another jacaranda-painting expedition a few weeks ago with our sketching group, I ended the session with a couple of sketches of  the thousands of fallen bougainvillea blossoms at my feet. I found the brush shaped petals and forms so enjoyable to paint, even roughly and quickly as I did them then (below), that I collected a hatful to take home. Yesterday I got to spend another happy hour or so painting them, now dried, more carefully, but still trying to keep them carefree. I think they'll do to wish every one of you a wonderful, joyous and peaceful festive season, however you celebrate it, wherever you are.

A Home to remember

One of our regular Joburg Sketchers, Barbara, invited us to her home yesterday, for a delicious tea and to sketch features of the lovely old house in which the family has lived happily for 30 years, and which is now on the market as they prepare to move into a new stage of life. Barbara is going to make a journal and sketchbook of the history and memories of their time there, and thought a sketching session by our group would get it off to a good start - we'll send her digital copies which she can print and put in the album. The house is full of beautifully crafted details from its early days, as well as modern open spaces that made it a very happy and welcoming home.

I started with the armchairs around the fireplace with an impressive brass collection on the mantelpiece, that must have overheard many an interesting discussion over sherry on cold winter's nights - and then to one of the lovely bevelled glass leaded windows (top) hosting a collection of wooden birds.

Barbara's little terrier caught my eye, basking in the sunlight coming through another window. I had to get her down quickly first before moving on to the surroundings as I knew she wouldn't stay there long - and she didn't, as soon as she realised she was being stared at.

John set up his easel and did an oil painting of the outside cottage. As I said before, Joburg is emptying out for the holidays, so only four of us got there - but hope it gets the ball rolling for the special record this journal will be.

Carols by Candlelight

This is the line drawing I did last week at the Zoo Lake Carols by Candlelight on Wednesday. I started sketching in late afternoon sunshine, when Simba the Lion and Father Christmas did their thing, and ended in the dark, lit by candles and spotlights as the Salvation Army band, the choir and the Nativity play swung into enthusiastic action.

After a while my Lamy pen was running out of ink and I couldn't see my page any more, so took the line drawing home and tried different techniques - wax crayons, watercolour wash and black and white pens and markers - to try to capture the sparkles, shimmers and glows of the night scene.

Carol concerts and Christmas Fairs have to be held early in Johannesburg. From now on, everybody starts packing up to go on holiday and from the 16th when the Builder's holidays start, it's practically deserted. Carols by Candlelight is an old tradition here, where families pack picnics, presents for needy children, blankets, granny and the kids, and gather in their hundreds on the grass under the stars.
The little girl in the middle seemed to find the drawing lady more interesting than all the entertainment behind her, but when the candles were lit she joined her mom to sing - there at bottom left.

Historic Glenshiel

 My friend Anni arranged for us to go and sketch in the beautiful gardens of Glenshiel on Saturday, one of Johannesburg's historic Randlord homes, housing the Order of St John which ran it as an auxiliary military hospital during World War Two, and now as an ambulance service. I chose a view with plenty of flowers and foliage in the foreground so as not to have to tackle all that architecture, just having a manageable corner peep through. Even so, it took me most of the afternoon to get that little bit of building down.

After that effort I turned to a tiny house that I thought had been some lucky little girl's wendy house, but which I now read is 'Polly Ann', one of many similiar Tudor Style cottages that were built as a a fundraising effort during the war, forming 'Olde England" with a Wishing Well and a Town Sign Post - I was wondering what those were doing there!

And last, with my architectural skills exhausted, I sketched a gnarled old tree trunk before going on a stroll around the rest of the property, finding a rose garden, a waterfall with a pond, plenty of nooks and crannies and a beautiful view over the Northern suburbs - plenty to go back for if we get another chance.

Jacaranda Joburg

Purple, purple everywhere right now - the jacarandas breathtakingly taking over the city - above our heads, below our feet as the fallen blossoms cover the streets, and wherever you turn. Trying to photograph and paint them, it seems impossible to really portray their glowing abundance of colour. On the left I tried splashing and dropping it on, emulating the flowers that drop constantly onto my page, and above, rolling the brush loaded with the staining dioxazine violet around the page to build darker tones but still trying to keep them light and luminous.

We're having a heat wave, and these scenes of women walking with umbrellas and pushing the prams of the babies they take care of are everywhere up and down the shady avenues - pure summer in Johannesburg!



Roaming around Rosebank

Wow, this blog has hit 300 followers and I can't see any of them on this page or in my dashboard - I still haven't figured out why - but thank you! Sorry for another long break, I've been doing a bit of work, and dithering around with all sorts of projects, getting out to sketch now and then...

 Cranks restaurant in Rosebank, from under a lovely jacaranda tree that I squeezed onto the edges. The jacarandas are out all over Joburg now, not as prolifically flowering as usual, but still magnificent.

Then I had lunch in another sidewalk café, sketching people in the restaurant opposite

 A few days later - a booksale in a Rosebank courtyard - my friend Anni, and I tried sketching from another viewpoint and were chased away by a security guard, so we asked the book sales people if we could sit close to them - next to another security guard - if we promised not to raid the till, and escaped the 'loiterer police' long enough to get down some browsing figures

After which we were ready for a cup of tea- and we drew the Friday after-work crowd gathering around us in peace

And an attempt to sketch people walking briskly past - still loving the waterbrush filled with Ecoline for this!