Happy 2014!

Happy New Year to everybody! With the hot colours of the zinnias now flowering in my garden, at last we're getting some proper summer after a cool, drizzly Christmas. I've been pondering where to, what and why for this blog. Posts have been becoming decidedly fewer and farther between - although I've been doing stuff, I just don't seem to have the time I used to to scan, edit images, write (which always takes me forever) and post. So as useless as I am at keeping new year resolutions, I think I'll make a list of Mores and Lesses to guide me through the year, and I hope it will mean more updates, with less time spent on this chair...so!...

More:

• drawing and sketching - of course
• painting (am doing another year long Greg Kerr course to keep me under the pump)
• moving - I think my hips are seizing up from long hours sitting, got to get back to regular walking, swimming, maybe dancing, which I love - as long as nobody's watching.
• gardening - I've planted a wisteria in front of my studio and it brings such a welcoming, fresh feeling I just want to spend more time there - lots more empty outdoor space to fill.
• playing, thinking, daydreaming

Less:

• words - you may get just pictures here sometimes
• computering, facebooking - much as I love seeing what everyone's up to and following hundreds of fascinating links and stories, it eats up hours, days and weeks!
• sitting
• housework - sorry family and friends who might pop in but I'm running out of time (not that I've ever done vast amounts of it but honestly as Joan Rivers says, "You make the beds, you wash the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again.")

I'll probably think of other things but that'll do for now, as I've been sitting here too long already. Wishing YOU a very productive and creatively fulfilling 2014!

Hambe Kahle Madiba

No matter how much we had prepared and were expecting it, the news that Nelson Mandela had died jolted us with terrible loss and sadness. On Friday I wanted to be with others who were feeling the same way and drove to the street of the Mandela family home in Houghton. People had been gathering there all night and morning, laying flowers, lighting candles, singing, praying and dancing. Almost a celebratory atmosphere at times, it was reminiscent of the joyous and unifying days of Madiba's release from prison, our first democratic election and the Rugby World Cup. Once again people of every colour, religion, age and nationality are coming together all over the country with a common purpose, to pay homage to this amazing man of courage, wisdom and reconciliation - may his legacy be revived and continue.

Bird Gardens

I wasn't going to post these, but I'm having computer problems, scanner problems, network problems... so here are some bird sketches that I did on a Joburg Sketchers trip to the Montecasino Bird Gardens back in October because they're here, on this computer. A hot steamy day, it was lovely to mosey around the park splashing paint around. I was hoping for much greater results, but these dots and dashes were the results of much squinting and concentration!

The macaws were hilarious - the blue and yellow ones were huddling on their table minding their own business and the red and green ones kept going over and causing a rumpus, in between showing off twirling around on the rope and terrorising passers-by.

While I was waiting for sketchers to arrive I sketched some little ducks, and then the schoolmasterly maribou storks. They are so morose and unattractive, you just have to love them!

Brown pelicans, a lonely looking kookaburra and two shades of flamingo - sorry about the grey images, so hard to pick up the watercolour washes if I whiten the paper. Wish I had my old scanner back!

A Heritage House - and portraits galore!

On a hot Saturday four of us went sketching at two early Johannesburg heritage homes in Parktown - built in 1903 and 1904 (Joburg is not very old is it?) One houses the National Children's Theatre and this one that I drew, theatre workshops for children; so every now and then bands of kids poured in and out of the building, whom I sketched as fast as I could. Those who know more about architecture than I do, thought the design and proportions were a bit weird - so I'll blame the wonkiness on that - wouldn't be my sketch would it!?

The Night of a 1000 Drawings was crazy - my friends Anni and John came with me to sketch portraits. After a slow start while we dithered about where and how to start, at last a little girl, Alexia, came up and asked for a portrait - and was unfazed when all three of us focused on her! Then another quiet patch until I approached a young woman and got her to sit for us - then suddenly there were queues forming and people clamouring, we got two more chairs and each of us had to sketch to beat the band  - literally as the night wore on, the party hotted up and the music got louder! I grabbed a few blurry photos (I'm good at those!) but didn't have time to get a record of all of them. We must have done at least 9 or 10 sketch portraits each before, with burning eyes and cramping fingers, we called it
a night - to remember! 

About 3000 drawings were hung up around the huge Sci-Bono Centre on washing lines. People had to buy envelopes with stickers for R100 each, wait for the bell to go and then place their stickers on the drawings they wanted. I found these photos on the 1000 Drawings Facebook page of my umbrella ladies with a couple of buyers with stickers at the ready...steady...sold! 

I recognise the girls in the middle photo on the left as two that I sketched - next time I'll take an 'official' photographer with us or a portable scanner - do you get such a thing?

Summer Umbrellas

These are six A5 drawings done from photos that I've taken over a couple of years, mostly from my car window when stopped at traffic lights or the side of the road, or while my husband was driving. I've always loved the sight of these women walking along with their umbrellas shielding them from the hot sun and wanted to sketch them - but they're moving, and I'm moving and it's been a bit impossible. So when I was thinking what to do for the Night of a 1000 Drawings charity event I decided to pull out my blurry photos and make a little series to donate. I kind of want to keep them now, but too late - they're on their way to the big night on Thursday. It's summer though, and there'll be plenty more bright umbrellas bobbing along pavements for another little - or big - series!

St John's College

Not many kilometres away, but a million miles in other respects from the graffiti, vendors, noise and smells of Newtown, are the hallowed grounds of St John's College, a prestigious private school where three of us went sketching on Saturday. With historic stone Herbert Baker buildings arranged around immaculate gardens and sports fields, every direction we looked held another perfect scene waiting for our attention. In fact - apart from having a quick look at the north side, where the wind was blowing and school buildings far too imposing and intimidating to draw - I didn't stir from my first chosen spot in the shade (on a steaming hot Spring day) in the David Quad, just turning to face front, left and up!

I took ink, dip pens and an array of sharpened sticks, determined to try and sketch in the medium of Kiah Kiean, whose work about brings tears to my eyes it's so beautiful. Of course mine is nothing like it, as it should (or shouldn't) be, but I enjoyed the different lines and unexpected results, in spite of my attempts to control them. An organist practising in the chapel nearby, over and over and OVER again was the only slightly jarring note after an hour or two, but I took it as a lesson - practice practice practice!

Street Tales

Sketches from last Friday's trip into Newtown - I decided I had to have a good go at sketching some of the buildings and architecture - something I'm not at all confident or comfortable doing as some of you know! After much holding up of pencils to measure and estimate angles I was quite pleased to get a reasonable rendition of Gwigwi Mwrebi St down, but want to get a looser and more interesting look to my lines - much more practice needed. I left off all the graffiti as my lines might have disappeared in the confusion!                                                             When a big truck parked in front of my view, I turned to the two women selling cigarettes on my right who had been chattering non-stop from the time I sat down next to them. They didn't seem to notice, or care, that I was drawing them. I liked the way the graffiti on the highway pillar soared up behind and above them, kind of illustrating the tales they might have been telling - I needed a longer page!