The Fire Walker

Our sketching group was privileged to be invited to sketch in William Kentridge's garden last week. The artist himself was away, but the place was abuzz with gardeners and its designer, who gained permission for us to visit - house and studio staff, personal assistants and visiting builders and workmen - really a full-on business in motion. We were allowed a peek into the huge studio where some exciting work-in-progress was displayed on shelves and walls. After an exhausting climb to the top of the garden to see the stunning views, I settled for a section of the garden in which a smaller version of William Kentridge and Gerhard Marx's 11 metre high FireWalker sculpture strides under an old fig tree. (I was struck by the holes in the fig leaves echoeing the holes in the sculpture and spent too long trying to depict that!) From various angles, the sculpture looks like scattered shapes of black and white metal plate, but when you see it directly from the front, they join together to form the figure of a woman, often seen around the streets of Joburg, who cook and sell mielies (corn) and meat over their fire braziers, carried to and from work balanced on their heads.
Ah, me and William K, working and drawing in the same inspiring surroundings...who would have thought!!

The Lamp Post

Thank you for all the well wishes! I'm happy to report that the pain in the neck is getting much better - numbness in my fingers will take a little longer. Sketching is fortunately one thing that isn't too hard to do, unlike hanging up washing (yay) and gardening! So I joined our group for the 39th SketchCrawl on Saturday, in the quaint suburb of Norwood. We had a great turnout, and the Lamp Post, a lovely shop full of interesting stuff and curiosities, was very welcoming, letting us 'crawl' all over it, inside and out, and providing lovely soup and sandwiches at lunchtime on a chilly autumn day.

I drew the outside of the shop, before increasing traffic blocked my view, and some raindrops drove me under cover. Two ladies at their food stall were not at all keen on being sketched, and emphatically turned their backs. While the newspaper man was very happy to be my subject as he wove amongst passing cars and trucks - turning to the old doll's pram in between glimpses of him.
You can see the other Joburger's sketches and a few photos here on Facebook and here on the Sketchcrawl site.

Woe is me

I've been feeling a bit sorry for myself. I did this stupid thing trying to swing myself up into a tree to prune a branch, badly straining muscles, tendons and nerves from my neck all the way through to my right forefinger. Comes from not realising my upper body strength has not kept up with my lower body expansion, and that I am no longer 25, but the reverse, plus some!

So these are a few sketches that I have managed with my restricted drawing capablities: Two women outside a local fruit & veg shop, selling brooms and embroidery, and a series of quick sketches in the waiting room of the X-ray department where I got my neck and shoulder checked out - nothing too alarming besides ancient whiplash injuries coming back to bite me, and good old, old age :-O)))

Prints for sale, and back at the Dam

Urban Sketchers has a new online store where you can buy prints of sketches from around the world, including these two of mine. All the art in the store raises funds in support of the USk blog and the upcoming symposium in Barcelona - which I was planning and looking forward to going to until my daughter announced her wedding date for a week later. Ah well, exchanging one happy event for another, not a bad prospect!
I chose these sketches as typical scenes in Johannesburg, very familiar to me. The jacaranda sketch I described in this blog post last November. The top one I did a couple of years ago, at Emmarentia Dam near my home. These basket ladies sit outside the entrance to the 'Dog Park' where we often go walking. If business is quiet they pick up their wares and walk around trying to find customers, keeping an eye out for security guards, as trading in the park is illegal. I sketched these three coming towards me from a distance - the furthest figure in my sketch actually being the woman in front, by the time they were up close I was scribbling down the one bringing up the rear.

On our last Joburg Sketchers sketch date we also went to 'the dam', the venue for our very first meeting back in August 2010 - still only four of us since a few of our regular sketchers have departed Jhb for more picturesque surroundings. But we make do with what we have, so once again applied ourselves to the geese, the pecked-bare red earth, the trees and the people...

Barney & Bella

I tried to do some watercolour sketches of Bella and Barney, who we cat-sat while on holiday at Kidds Beach, as a little thank you to their beloved pet human for opening her home to us while she was travelling. Of course they didn't stay still for a single minute, even while sleeping, and my birds-eye view (I wouldn't like to be a bird near these two highly athletic and alert siblings!) of them moving around on the deck resulted in a page of rather contorted looking kitties.

Posting here is likely to be even more erratic than usual with a wedding on the cards, my eldest daughter and her fiancé happily having booked the day. My usual reaction to a mountain of things to do and having to think and plan is to freeze in a tizz until adrenalin takes over and I start to get things done. Sketching and painting seem like an unnecessary distraction from my state of catatonia, but I'll try now and then!

The Tearoom

Two other sketches from my week at the coast, the top one is of what used to be the Kidds Beach Tearoom, now a restaurant and pub. When we used to come here as children it was about the most thrilling aspect of the trip. Walking up those curved steps into the smell of suntan lotion, sweets, fresh bread, sand and sea is still a strong memory, though now replaced with fish and chips and beer. We were allowed to choose one or two sweets - usually it was a big pink stick of 'Kidds Beach Rock', with the name running right through from end to end, to last for the whole holiday.

The second is the ancient little changeroom/wind shelter next to the tidal pool, daubed with seaside graffiti -and with a passing beach cleaner superimposed. The sea around here really does teem with dolphins sometimes - a day or two before this I'd watched hundreds slowly rolling past as we sat having sundowners on the patio - what a privilege!

Rocks, Pools, Waves

I'm back from a wonderful, relaxed ten days down in the Eastern Cape - in the little hamlet of Kidds Beach where my family have been spending holidays for generations and which holds many happy memories.

It was quiet after all the holiday-makers had returned to work - we are rejoicing in no longer having to stick to school holidays to take our breaks!

As you can see, I had time to sketch, as well as walk, read, swim, sleep... I found a great watercolour book at our extended family's home, 'Mastering Color & Design in Watercolor' by Christopher Schink, which I studied and took copious notes from, and tried to use some of his exercises in these sketches (using mostly watercolour, with some Inktense crayons). The colours in that rock pool are exaggerated, but when you stare at them for ages, they seem so brilliant! There were beautiful long white beaches too, where we walked and swam, but my husband and son fished from the rocks so that is where I sat too. Trying to paint the sea and rocks is completely absorbing, time flies and I felt I'd just begun when it was time to leave. I can see why some artists spend a lifetime trying to capture it.