Melville Koppies

Just up the hill from my house, is a heritage site, Melville Koppies Central, where Stone and Iron Age artefacts have been discovered and preserved. It's not generally open to the public, but they have Open days for walkers and hikers, birding days, and for the first time last Saturday, a sketching, painting and photography day. John, Anni and I jumped at the chance to spend a morning in this wild spot of nature in the middle of Joburg, and we really felt as if we were out in the bush, apart from distant sounds of traffic and boys playing soccer down at Marks Park.

 I had planned to move around, sketching from the top of the koppie, down to the forested area lower down, but ended up sitting at the same spot, just turning my chair around to face South, then East, and finally North, before two of the hardworking custodians of the site, Wendy and John came to tell us they were locking up. I became fascinated with the thatching grass all around me - long and dry in the middle of winter, at first it seemed a uniform blond ochre, the more I looked, the more colours I saw. Pinks, golds, mauve and blue, shots of luminescent green - impossible to put them all in without drawing each stalk individually - and glimpses of the city looking soft and gentle through the waving strands  - I felt I could paint there for weeks on end.

We've been told we can go back and paint when the Birders are there - really look forward to another escape to the country - so close by!

Johannesburg City Library

 Joburg Sketchers went to the newly renovated and revamped Public Library in the city on Saturday. We had an anxious start with parking hassles and misunderstandings, and then in the library some of us being told we weren't allowed to sketch there... but after some negotiations it was all sorted out - we've evn been invited back to give a workshop! The library is beautiful, restored to its former glory and more.

There were lots of concientious students using the reading and reference rooms. I did a quick sketch of the huge windows with a floating level halfway down them, then looked down to some people working below - of course as soon as I started on the guy (that is a guy!) on the right he began packing up to go. It was a freezing cold day, and though some of the library is heated, swinging doors let icy blasts through every room, so many of the readers kept their coats and hoodies on.

Fingers freezing, I did a very fast sketch of one of two enormous, ornate book presses in the entrance foyer, the coldest room of all while waiting for the others to finish. I thought that my Pentel Pocket Brushpen wasn't working very well on the paper I had, but discovered when I got home that it had run out of ink - darn! It gave me some interesting textures I guess. We found a fast-food place nearby to have coffee, a bite to eat and look at everyone's sketches. You can see most of them here on Facebook.

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.