The Gatecrasher

Thank you everybody for your comments on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? - I can't take any credit for the concept, I would never have thought of all those connections without prompting and guidance from my highly creative and innovative teacher. Here's the answer to the gatecrasher riddle for those who are still wondering... Salvador Dali, no less, who would normally I imagine, completely dominate a dinner party, so I had to keep him firmly and discreetly in his place. At the top is a rendition of his Lobster telephone, then a tiger from his 'Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumble Bee round a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening' (how's that for a title!) in which the elephant in the spoon on the right also features, then the face from his painting Sleep. In the salt and pepper set, very hard to see - the Persistence of Memory, and finally his face of 'Mae West Which Can be Used as an Apartment' installation, another catchy little title.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

These are what I've been very busy on in between quick sketching trips lately - place settings (420x300mm) in acrylic for my artist's Dinner Party for this year's Greg Kerr painting course. Each place has a main guest in it, plus the guest to his or her left - except for one dinner companion who appears in two as I, the hostess, appear in all of them, as does a gatecrasher who was randomly thrown in as a curveball while we were puzzling over how to arrange all those elements. Mine was ignored by most of the guests, so felt very small! Finally we were to include the Valentine cards, or an element or part of them, from the preliminary stage of the course.

Can you guess who they all are? Answers over here in the Valentine cards, apart from the gatecrasher, who didn't deserve a Valentine, besides I had no idea he would be there.

If you thought that was challenging, and it was (I'm hoping my paintings don't look too much like a car-boot sale!) - wait till you hear the next part of the project.

Artists Under The Sun

After the noise and bustle of the Children's Day in my last post, a couple of us crossed the road to Zoo Lake to have a look at Artists Under the Sun. A hot steamy day, Barbara and I found a bench under a big shady tree and decided to carry on sketching the relaxed scene around us. After a while one of the artists in this little group came over to have a look, and was captivated by the idea of sketching from life, in public. When I suggested that she try it, she said she felt she didn't have the 'skill levels'! I wish I'd encouraged her further, but somehow my linguistic brain goes into neutral while I'm concentrating on drawing and I only think of these things later. The word travelled though, and a little trickle of artists came wandering over to visit us, all very complimentary and enthusiastic - I think other artists really appreciate the challenges of sketching from life. I did spot one woman later, looking up and down between the view and a book on her lap - so maybe we've started a trend at the outdoor art market...

Puppets and Drums

Joburg Sketchers went to the Alliance Francaise on Saturday, where they were having a children's day with stories, marionettes, drumming workshops and more. We tucked ourselves into corners of the room and enjoyed with the kids the expert manipulations of Alida van Deventer, the puppeteer, who made her characters come completely to life. I rather wished I was watching her more attentively, as I missed some of the wonderful show while recording some of the puppets and the children's reactions. It can't be easy to entertain children who've grown up on a diet of exciting, amazingly illustrated and 3 dimensional movies, computer and TV games, but they were enthralled.

Then came the drums and tales to go with them, each child joining in with the rhythm and chorus of the drumbeats - I felt like doing that too! But sketching them was a good second option. One dad who was looking over my shoulder asked if I'd sketch his two children, which I did very quickly, trying to remain calm as I worried more about likenesses - I got the little boy's eyes a bit squiffy as they darted from the storyteller to me, but Dad was happy and invited me to his restaurant in exchange after I gave him the sketch. You never know where sketching will take you next!

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