The Art of Urban Sketching is here!

 I'm not sure if I was absolutely the last Urban Sketchers correspondent to receive my copy of The Art of Urban Sketching, but I was getting very worried watching them arrive everywhere from the Caribbean to Turkey to New Zealand and no little white slip in my postbox... but at last on Monday there it was and I rushed off to fetch it, racing home again to open the box and turn the pages from the first to the last. As I say in my sidebar, it is a treasure trove - of sketches, sketching experiences, stories, tips and inspiration from all around the world - and is going to keep me enthralled and engrossed for many hours, over and over again.

I am so proud to be included in this collection with the talented, varied and versatile artists who have contributed to the book, and am ever grateful to Gabi Campanario aka The Seattle Sketcher. First of all for starting this global community, then inviting me to represent my city and country in sketches, expanding my horizons beyond what I ever imagined - through discovering my own city more deeply and intimately, online sharing, the Lisbon symposium that made some of my virtual friends three dimensional and real and introduced me to the new experience of tutoring - and now this wonderful book, which entailed many, many long hours of planning, design, emailing, downloading, curating, compilation and editing for Gabi and his family.

I had to show off my pages here, just a fraction of what this fat, generous book holds in store. I would encourage anyone at all interested in urban sketching or travel to get a copy, ASAP!

If you go down to the woods today...

...and you haven't been around 20 or so tots for a while, it is a big surprise! I'd forgotten how non-stop full-on go-go they can be. It was my nephew's baby's first birthday party on Saturday and I set myself an impossible task trying to capture all the little people that were toddling, crawling and dashing around, while negotiating some sticky hands grasping at my pen and offering me spitty sausages - but I got a few, and a couple twice.

photo: Huw Morris

We brought teddy bears for the Nkanyesi Day Care Centre for children with cerebral palsy in Soweto, a little way to share the happiness of this occasion with babies who aren't so lucky.

A Late Valentine...or six

I really wanted to post these on Valentine's Day, but I was just too pooped after the second day of this year's Greg Kerr painting course, 'The Dinner Party'. For our preparations over the last few months we had to design and make Valentine cards for five artists of our choosing, plus one for ourselves (how difficult was that!). It involved much research, reading, thinking and copying. We had to put in something of the artist, something of ourselves and something about Valentines. It was a very clever way to totally involve us in our chosen subjects - I was amazed at how Mr Bacon kept me awake at night! I went a bit overboard on the hearts, lace and flowers - but I thought if I'm going to do this I might as well go the whole hog. So without further ado, here are my tributes to Georgia, Wayne, Francis, Marc, Alice and me!

Georgia O'Keeffe

Wayne Thiebaud



Francis Bacon

Marc Chagall

Alice Neel and me

Chinese New Year in South Africa

 Brightwater Commons had a Chinese New Year festival on Saturday, and some of our sketchers decided to join the throngs and see what there was to draw. There was plenty! I don't think I've ever done so many sketches in one session.. I started off quite slowly, with the beautifully serene Thai Massage tent - a great subject for an afternoon, all on its own.

But there was lots more to see, so I moved off to some of the stalls, selling parasols and fans, very popular in the baking sun.  I started adding colour to my sketches, but things were happening on the stage, so off to find a spot to sketch...

 The Dragon Dance first of course, being it's Year. My pen had to start flying across the page as the pace increased, and accuracy gave way to just trying to capture a feeling, a rhythm, a movement - or ten!

After mixing some muddy reds for the Lion Dance in my haste, I gave up on the colour, taking a few notes here and there so I could remember them later

An eclectic mixture of cultures started to emerge on stage - first came the Zulu dancers in sort of traditional dress, with some adaptations of bright pink and blue beads

and then a rather bizarre combination of Pedi men in Scottish kilts, with the women in a modernised version of the traditional Pedi dress

- after these thumping, , drumming exuberant local dancers it was the turn again of the Chinese, with the graceful, flowing Fan and Flower Dances

Then came the high-kicking karate students from the school in the shopping centre

- and lastly, before we went off for a break to see everyone else's sketches and looking forward to some Chinese food and a drink, the slow precise and meditative movements of the Archers.

Unfortunately most of the food was sold out and shortly afterwards the rain came belting down, so the Chinese acrobats carried sportingly on without us in the slippery wet - Just as well, I think I was sketched out!

Sketchcrawl #34

Our Sketchcrawl took place at the Old Observatory, where we were greeted by a spectacular new (to me)view of Johannesburg and the strange round-topped buildings that house the telescopes, or the few that are left. The main big telescopes have been moved to the new Observatory in Sutherland, and there is a slightly abandoned air about the structures scattered around this site, though there are plans to turn it into an interactive Science Park according to their website.  

I joined most of the other sketchers - great turnout this time - on a high round platform with a panoramic 360° view. (Do go and check out Barbara's sketches for a really comprehensive visual report of the day!) I did a quick warm-up sketch of the little library and some of the towers, but wished I'd brought my Japanese fold-out Moleskine - a perfect place to fill that, I'll have to go back when I've got plenty of sketching energy and time!

I then went inside the building on the left, and ambitiously thought I'd fit in the whole telescope with its sliding window above it (I'm sure there are technical terms for all these things, but I don't know them). I didn't, and got a little grumpy trying.  




 I went off to find something more in my comfort zone, and settled on one of the lovely old windows of the Herbert Baker-built library surrounded by its warm golden stone walls.
By which time I realised how hot and dehydrated I was - and hungry - so into the cool library for a sandwich and some water, and finally found a shady place to sit on the stoop for my last sketch of the day, pleasantly peaceful apart from the sound of a persistant chainsaw somewhere down in the valley.

Railways and Bridges

 Joburg Sketchers ventured into the city on Saturday - well, the gateway to the city - where the fairly new Nelson Mandela bridge spans the railway lines, connecting Braamfontein and the Northern suburbs to Newtown, Johannesburg central and the South. We parked in the grounds of the Holy Trinity Catholic church, which Barbara and I tried sketching while waiting for everyone to arrive (right), which was the start of a challenging few hours drawing architecture and lots and lots of lines!

We worked our way towards the bridge, some of us getting very successful sketches along the way. I had a huge truck obstruct my first view of the bridge so only really got to work again once we were on it. Looking down, the converging and swerving lines of the railways and trains, the bridges and highways, the verticals, diagonals, horizontals and criss-crosses were so intricate it was almost impossible to see what was what and I kept swopping implements to try and capture it all. Then a quick look up and a half-hearted, not very hopeful attempt to get that soaring perspective above me (left).

We then decided to look for a more distant viewpoint, eventually landing up on the 4th floor of a parking garage, where we had a panoramic view of the bridge, the railways and part of the city. I managed to stick to just one drawing tool this time - my aquabrush filled with Ecoline watercolour.

You can see everyone else's sketches here on Facebook, and Cathy, Barbara and John's posts on their blogs.

Here are five versions of the same scene, from slightly different angles on the bridge, from left to right, Barbara, John, Anni, me and Cathy Giordini-Bricka - I love seeing the different treatments!

A Slow Start and Slow Painting

 I'm having very frustrating computer problems at the moment - technology stuck in the last decade - so can't scan or web browse. It's gone for an overhaul and I hope will be back in action soon. I'm using an even older slower machine, which I'm likely to throw out of the window if I try to do anything too complicated, so I've found some images in the hard drive that I haven't shown here before.

This is a painting I've been working on, or should I say agonising over, for 15 years or so. It started out as a completely blue painting of five figures, which was cold and boring - so eventually, after years of pondering, I superimposed another version of the figures over that with some colour (below).
After learning about glazing last year, I sketched in different poses of the figures with a red oilstick, and glazed layers over, trying to abstract it a bit more. In the version above, I added some digital lighter shapes which aren't in the actual painting... yet... who knows how it might go over the next fifteen years. I can't see it objectively any more. If it weren't such a big canvas - 122cm x 76cm - I'd scrap it and call it a day.

I haven't made any ambitious resolutions, but I do wish you all a wonderful, productive, creatively fulfilling 2012, heavens, there are only 11 and a half months left. At least I get to spend more time in my studio when computering is so painful - if I had made resolutions, that would be one!