Spear March

Today a march was held in Rosebank, quite near to where I live, to protest against the Goodman Gallery displaying a "derogatory" painting of the president. I thought that I should be brave and go and do some reportage sketching, though was pretty sure I'd safely chicken out at some stage. But I told my sketching friend Anni about my thought, and she was very enthusiastic, saying she'd meet me around 12... and so there we were!

At first there were mostly mounted guards, riot police and ANC marshalls gathered around, which made me nervous enough, but I started drawing them from behind as they gazed expectantly up Jan Smuts Avenue. Then we heard singing and chanting in the distance, coming closer, the mounted police lined up and my heart beat even faster - but there were plenty of relaxed and jovial people milling around, including a cheerful looking ANC protester chatting on her phone on my left - so we carried on sketching as the street ahead filled up. Soon it was apparent that speeches and the odd "Viva" call were all that were on the agenda - it was to be a peaceful, restrained occasion, much to my relief.

When it looked like the main event was over, we walked around the block to see if we could get closer, and found ourselves weaving our way right through the thick of the protesters - all friendly and approachable, two women readily agreeing to sit for us (but don't put the picture in 'that' gallery, they said!) I wish I could have sketched faster and got lots more of the colourful outfits and lively characters. Almost back where we started, we had a last opportunity to sketch the flamboyantly dressed elders, leaders and politicians on the back of the broadcasting truck before the crowds dispersed and we headed for a much needed drink and some lunch.

Salvage Yard



I used my water-soluble Berol Karisma Graphite Aquarelle pencil for this sketch, with a touch of watercolour. I've had it for years and neglected it, lovely for quick tonal values but I need to get looser with it.



After a long break a small group of sketchers met up at Protector Build salvage yard in Honeydew - which used to be out in the sticks when I first came to Johannesburg, but is now a continuation of housing and industrial estates all along the long road North. We were a bit dismayed at first at the ugliness of our subject, but I soon got absorbed in the shapes and shadows of the piles of tiles and wood  - deconstructed homes presumably to be recycled into other people's houses by the men who were loading stuff into trucks and bakkies. I was really enjoying myself by the time I was on the last sketch - such a typical Joburg scene of dry wintry sun, long grass turned to gold (before the inevitable winter veld fires strike) and dusty road - and we were told they were locking up. I'll be happy to go back sometime to tackle the other piles of debris I didn't get to!

Autumn show

We're having glorious autumn weather at the moment - I took time yesterday to sketch these cymbidiums that come up every year without fuss or gardening attention in the shade at the bottom of the garden. You hardly see them unless the sun catches some of the yellow and rust-coloured blooms and you go a bit closer.

Dinner Party Work-in-Progress

After an intense four days of painting on two 1200x800mm canvases last week, there is still a way to go on both of them. Here's what's happened since the clay figures I made... the six figures were arranged around a table and put in a setting. I put plain cardboard walls around them after failing to make a convincing stage set and afraid the whole thing would crash down and further destroy my crumbling people, then lit the scene in various ways to take as many interesting photos as possible (the possibilities were endless!) I digitally cut some of my figure arrangements out and pasted them onto photo backgrounds, finally settling on one of a ruined cathedral in Lisbon that my husband took when I was busy with the Urban Sketchers Symposium last year, and he and our son were sight-seeing. We were to draw up this design onto one canvas and leave the other blank.

On Monday morning our painting group gathered excitedly, nervously, or both - we knew we were in for a week of hard work and plenty of surprises. Greg informed us that we would be painting two large paintings in the four days, immediately creating a sense of urgency/disbelief/panic. The drawn up canvas was to be glazed with primary colours, randomly in sections, then glazed again with the primaries to create secondary colours. While that was drying, the other canvas was covered with a glaze in a colour of our choice, lifting out areas freehand where we wanted lighter or back to a previous colour, using our photos. Both methods similiar to what we did last year in the Dark Cloud workshops. The glazing and lifting  on both paintings continued, building tones and secondary, tertiary and strangely indescribable other colours.

They're not finished yet - mine are extremely weird, not your average portrait group but so interesting to me in subject, process and unexpected results - I will forge on with them and see where we end up. I wish I could show you all the paintings that were produced, each so different and with their own unique qualities, a real credit to the teaching to produce such a range of individual responses to the project.

Clay people

My poor neglected sketch blog - not much sketching going on!

I've been making clay figures for the next stage of the painting course, and getting thoroughly carried away with little fingers and roses, cherries and violins. Each figure again representing one of the artists at my Dinner Party, I've made all six now, set them around the table and am busy staging, lighting and photographing them for the painting sessions next week. I've loved making them - perhaps I should have been a sculptor, though my proportions are off, we have very big heads at this dinner!
This is how they started off, as wire armatures. I would like to have fired and kept them, but they have all started cracking badly and probably full of air pockets, might explode in a kiln.

Drummies and Roundabouts

 I'm slaving away with clay at the moment for my Dinner Party project, and enjoying it immensely - takes me right back to my plasticine days and making tiny bowls of fruit to feed my tiny make-believe family. But I'm not ready to show and tell yet, so here are some sketches I did with our Joburg group at Marks Park just before we went away.

A junior baseball tournament was about to get under way, and there were drum majorettes directed by a rather camp coach, children (I'm sketching a lot of children lately!) playing on a roundabout and the players lining up for their march past. Some dads kept going over to the roundabout and telling the boys to get off in case they hurt themselves - and then wouldn't be fit to play baseball - no such concern for the girls and tiny tots who were whizzing around! 

 

A Little Break

I'm posting this very rough, quick sketch I did on a cold, wet, windy beach over the Easter weekend - just to say I'm still here, or at least I'm back. We went down to the Cape for a break with friends in their beach cottage, where we mostly slept, read, talked, ate and drank some lovely champagne. All in all a wonderful restful week in which I refused to feel guilty for not being more productive, a goal in which the appalling weather co-operated greatly! After that we went to Cape Town for the other purpose of our journey - a big 40 year reunion of our school matric class, which turned out to be a completely happy experience renewing old friendships and making some new ones.
Lots to do and catch up on now that we're back - I hope it's not too long before I have something to show you again here!