Finished and Klaar!

A watercolour doodle I did some time ago (have I posted it before?) which kind of describes how I'm feeling - ie the woozy man, not the jaunty girl - after a marathon two months or more of drawingdrawingdrawing and for the last two weeks, colouringcolouringcolouring on the computer. Below is a collage of just a few of the line drawings for the health manual I've been working on, which were preceded by copious pencil sketches which were submitted for comments and many changes. They had to be very clear and explicit, with each tiny face bearing a tiny expression and every little figure representing an ethnic group, with a hairstyle, a set of clothes and usually an ailment or health issue. So many decisions to make, so many reference pics to look up... but, I'm done! Holding thumbs and crossing toes as it goes into meetings and gets discussed ad infinitum, that it won't come back with more changes. Ah well, there are worse ways to make a living.
One great thing I've discovered during this long stretch are Podcasts. They made hours and hours of sitting, eyestrain and shoulder-burn (I did get up to stretch and fetch too many snacks) positively uplifting. Some of my favourite listening sites: On Being , Savvy Painter,  Melvyn Bragg on BBC... there are so many more, I could sit here for ever and never get through them, but very happy to have found them when I did.

Not sure what to do with myself now - I will I hope, get back soon to painting and sketching, of the loose & spontaneous variety, but for the the moment I'm just pottering.

A Deep Purple Breather

I'm still up to my ears in my big illustration job and will be for at least the next three weeks - hundreds of little scenarios showing public health problems and how to deal with them, involving many confusing briefs, sketches, instructions and changes to all of the above... I'm through the pencil rough stage and busy with line drawings, next is colouring them all up in Photopaint....ooh my burning neck!

But I have got out now and then for a breath of air and some happy sloshing around with paint. It's jacaranda season (almost over already) so I just had to join sketcher friends in one of the purple shrouded avenues that grid the city and try once again to capture their glow. This one was actually sold after its appearance on our Joburg Sketchers page (thank you Peggy, if you read this!) I'll tell you soon about another lovely painting weekend, but it'll need a bit of work to show and tell... in the meantime, back to the drawing board.

The Old Post Office

Sketches from a few weeks ago when I went to an art exhibition in an old building that used to house Johannesburg's Post Office processing site. Enormous sorting sheds where trains and buses would offload piles of mail, buildings that used to be stables for the P.O. horses, strange machines whose purpose is a mystery (to me anyway). This all hidden behind walls that I've driven past so many times and vaguely wondered if there was anything interesting behind them. We went back to draw before it's all changed - the City Library still uses some of the premises for storage but loft apartments are in the planning stage for others.

In the meantime, Summer has arrived! Gardens are buzzing, jacarandas are in their full purple magnificence, birds and frogs are calling and swimming pools are sparkling in an early heat wave. Why is it that enormous mountains of work - absent and leaving me twiddling my thumbs all through the winter months, when sitting in a sunspot and ploughing through it would be an appealing alternative to sitting on icy windswept pavements - suddenly arrives in truckloads, just when all my urges are telling me to go outside and paint, sketch, experience. Moan, moan, moan and I shouldn't when work is often hard to come by, but really...

Heritage Day

 It was Heritage Day on the 24th September, when South Africans celebrate their very many different histories, traditions and cultural backgrounds. With my English, Scottish and Swedish ancestry long jumbled up in the past, I would have quite liked to potter around in the garden at home with a good old South African braai to finish off the holiday - but a sketchcrawl had been called, so off I went to the Constitution Hill venue, expecting to draw some of the buildings as I did nearly three years ago.

Well, it was a very busy place, with a 'Light the Way' event planned to coincide with the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York just getting into gear. I had started sketching one of the stair towers housing the 'Flame of Democracy', of the old awaiting-trial blocks which have been preserved as a reminder of the Concourt's grim past - but when some very loud thudding music and dancers started getting into action in the square, I turned my attention to them. (perhaps that distraction was why I put the leaning fellow's hand on the tree in the foreground :-o)
After some frantic drawing, eventually there were too many people blocking my view, with quite a crowd gathered around watching every move of my pen I decided it was time to escape the heat and noise and return to my corner of suburbia, and a relaxed braai with my family.

Trees in the City

On a gorgeous Spring morning last Friday, a few sketcher friends and I met in Braamfontein to record a 'Parking Day' event where artists and activists were supposed to take over parking bays and transform them. It had been cancelled at the last minute and not an activist was to be found. Lots of cars in the parking bays, students to and from nearby Wits University, some vigilant security guards steering a few beggars away from the streets and cafés - I decided to try and draw the row of public art tree sculptures that runs all the way up Juta St, but all these things got in the way. I added the colours so you can spot them among the other activity!

Lunar Ladies

My daughter is the designer for Lunar clothing store in a shopping centre not too far from where I live. Behind the scenes of the elegant, uncluttered showroom is a hive of activity where these seamstresses cut, measure, pin and whirr away on their machines to bring the designs into being.
I popped in a few weeks ago with the problem of an urgent hem for a 60th birthday party (mine!!) to be taken up and no working sewing machine to do it myself - quickly and efficiently taken care of by the ladies - but not before I had the chance to tuck myself in between rolls of fabric and hanging garments and sketch them hard at work.

Apologies once again for being so scarce... turning this large sounding age was one thing I've been getting my head around, along with some wonderful surprises that came along with it (my sister who was supposed to be at home in Texas popping up at my birthday party!) - and other projects, pleasures and possibilities have been claiming my limited attention, time and concentration. Drawing (apart from a big illustration job that arrived in the middle of this flurry of activity) and painting have taken a back seat, but things are quietening down and I think I'm feeling that urge to put pen and brush to paper again!

Three days at the Mall

 I spent three days last week actually being paid to sketch - on a chalkboard - for a promotion in Sandton City shopping centre. I had to draw background themes for people to come and sit in front of and have their photos taken so it would look as if they had, for example, angel wings or a chef's hat grasping a wooden spoon and cake, or blowing seeds from a chalk dandelion. It was really effective and fun when people took part, though most in the centre were rushing to get where they were going or too shy, so we didn't get as many takers as I was expecting.
In the long waits between customers I sketched anyone who hung around for a few minutes - it's a long time since I've done such a lot of people watching and sketching, I think the practice did me good. Read the script if you want to know more :-)

Glorious Kaffe

Do you know who Kaffe Fassett is?
Only one of the world's most innovative and flamboyant colourists and author of many lovely books on knitting, needlepoint, quilts, interiors - anything you can imagine where Glorious Colour and design can be flaunted and overindulged. I've been a fan since the 80's when I first discovered his beautiful knits and books, so was astounded to hear from my fashion designer daughter that he was coming to a local fabric store and giving a talk in the church hall, to which she had bought tickets.

I packed a tiny watercolour palette and my new Hero bent nib calligraphy pen - a dear friend's son had bought it for me at the factory shop in Shanghai. It had travelled halfway round the world and was finally delivered from Cape Town via another kind friend on Sunday.
We found a front row seat where I had plenty of time to sketch the grand piano draped in quilts. Eventually Kaffe's studio manager Brandon Mably took the stage to introduce the man himself, and we were treated to a fascinating peek into his world of travel and colour, illustrated with a slide show of images from his next book. He did a book signing afterwards, and I thought of asking him to sign my sketch, but decided he might not enjoy my less than flattering rendition. At 77 he is still a very beautiful man!

I'm slowly getting the hang of my new pen. It can make a range of line widths by changing the angle at which you hold it. It works better and more predictably on smoother paper (as in the doodles on the right), but is great for expressive strokes even in my rougher sketchbook. Think it'll inspire me to get back into action and out of a rather arid sketching phase.

Scenes from an Exhibition

Not proud of myself that I completely baled out of my commitment to draw Every Day in May last month, but you'll be pleased to know (I hope) that it succeeded in making me realise what it was I really wanted to be doing. So I've spent the last couple of weeks with canvases, brushes and paint, and though I don't really want to talk about it yet, I am happy that the ball is kind of bumpily rolling in that direction - I'll show you when there's something finished and worth showing. 

In the meantime, the sketchers were invited to the Rotary Art Festival at the upmarket shopping centre of Hyde Park over three of the ten days that it was on for. Loads of artists exhibiting over three floors, life drawing, painting and printmaking demos, restaurants and viewing public, there was plenty to sketch. I think next time, if there is one, we should have an Urban Sketching display with explanations of what we try to do, as we attracted some quizzical and suspicious looks.

This was a group of exhibiting artists having what looked like a very entertaining lunch

 And some unsuspecting patrons at the same restaurant

where some very busy waiters were the next victims

We sat up on the top floor looking down at more restaurants and some of the people milling around the exhibition. Then an attempt to catch in colour people as they stood on the escalator coming up. Those things go much faster than you think, and everyone looks up startled to see eyes fixed upon them, so it was short-lived!

James Hall Transport Museum

It was International Museum Day on Monday, and to mark it, on Saturday our sketching group motored over to the James Hall Museum of Transport on the other side of the city. As we wandered around the halls crammed with metal, rubber and chrome I admit my heart sank a bit at the prospect of trying to draw some of these mechanical beasts with all their precise angles, lines and engineerings. But down one rather dusty row of cars waiting for restoration I spotted a curvy, lumpy old character that took me straight back to my childhood and my grandparent's home and car in the (then) little seaside town of Hermanus.

My mother stretching to see over the unfamiliar wood and leather dashboard and straining to turn the big circle of steering wheel, my sister and I bouncing around the roomy back seat excited to be the first to see the blue of the sea, smell the smells of Sea&Ski suntan lotion, icecream, salt and sand, peering through the slatted blind of the tiny back window... I'm not even sure it was the same kind of car (I am of the ilk that describes cars as 'red' or 'black') but I was away, drawing and appreciating the beauty of these relics at last. Such craftsmanship, attention to detail and solid gravitas, the more you looked the more there was to love.
Joburg Sketchers produced an impressive set of sketches of a fraction of the collection of this wonderful museum - another place we'll just have to go back to!

11,12, Dig and Delve

We've had agonisingly slow internet connections for a while, interspersed with power cuts so a big batch of Every Day in May sketches in one post... I feel I'm doing this challenge a bit like my great-nephew's quick way to count to a hundred..."one, two, miss a few, ninety-nine, a hundred". Although I've only missed one, Day 13's The last thing you bought, I've combined a couple - 11 and 12 Hat and Steps - the ones outside my studio where I'm ever-so-slowly turning bare earth into a little garden with railway sleeper steps, paving stones, a birdbath and groundcover - and 15 and 16 Ingredients for a favourite recipe (chocolate cake - forgot the sugar!) and Something to measure with.

The others are 14. Something you use every day - my glasses, every hour of every day, when I'm not searching for them;
15. Something you could Throw Away - my bags and boxes full of jacaranda pods - They've been turned into Christmas wreaths and angels, painted in oils, watercolour and inks and still every year our two trees rain down another batch and I can't resist picking them up and stashing them, they are so pretty!


18. Lipstick - a very red one that I never wear - it just looks ridiculous on me, like a reverse No Entry sign; and 19. a Cupcake - I resisted going out to buy one or spending a morning baking because... you know why, so used a photo I took at a friend's wedding a few weeks ago.

Like others, I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep this up - other projects are calling and a possibility of exhibiting some work if I can finish it...

EDM 8, 9, 10

 Not keeping up at all with Every Day in May. This sometimes feels like a freelance job that nobody's going to pay me for, especially with the "pack shots". Once I get going on shapes, shines and reflections on surfaces though I get drawn into the happy place of total involvement, and it doesn't feel like work any more.

Days 8 & 9 combined - Something with a handle, and an interesting label. My Brown Betty teapot (discovered it was called that in the facebook group) and Eleven O'Clock Rooibos tea, been around as long as I have judging by the fifties style label and my memories of my grandmother serving it. I loathed it then but love it now as a bedtime drink that won't keep me up all night.

Day 10 - Something you can switch on and off - my trusty Crazy Duck hairdryer. Other more stylish hairdryers have come and gone, but this guy keeps blowing hot air tirelessly over 30+ years and still makes me smile. I enjoyed painting him, strangely - and my son who doesn't often comment on what I'm doing said "Cool, mom, can I have this one?" Score!

Envelopes - Days Gone By

Eeh, a day behind - yesterday's theme, though I sketched it last night. Personal envelopes (not the kind with little windows unfortunately) are becoming a rare sight, all covered with stamps, handwriting and postmarks.
I used to check my letterbox almost as often as I now check my emails, as one of the many South Africans with many or most of their family and old friends living elsewhere in the world. In fact sit in front of and stare at it - willing one of those crisp, fat packages of news and connectivity to plop through the slot from loved ones. Little gifts, when you consider all that went into writing, stamping, and posting them, sometimes enclosing drawings or children's scribbles, compared to dashing off a few lines in an email or dialing up on Skype. Which is fantastic and miraculous, make no mistake, but just not the same. These are from my three sisters - one sadly no longer with us - from different parts of the world, I wish I'd kept more of them. I think I'll make a new family law that says we have to write each other one real humdinger of a letter a year, except I'll probably be the first to break it. (BTW the address on the top one is obsolete so you won't reach me there if you're thinking of writing:)

An exciting white slip did arrive this week in our rusty old disused letterbox. To collect a parcel from the P.O. which turned out to be packs of postcards from images published in The Art of Urban Sketching. 100 each of three of mine, and a wonderful collection of a hundred of the other participating urban sketcher's works which I'm really thrilled to have and keep - not sending those, but postcard, anyone?

Something with Bristles

So much for posting every day - just keeping up with drawing is about all I can manage. Day 6's EDM challenge 'something with bristles' immediately made me think of the drawing into ink washes with bleach method that I first tried here. Great for fine lines and scrubby marks. I was asked to post a tutorial by a couple of people on the Facebook page, so here goes:

Materials:

• Black water-soluble fountain pen ink. Not sure if Parker Quink is available everywhere, it's a standard stationery item here. (the flower on the top is mine :)) 
• Ordinary household bleach. I wasn't aware of how bad it is for you till someone mentioned it in the comments and I looked it up. Wear gloves and a mask, open the windows and doors!
• Water for rinsing and diluting the ink and bleach - a small nozzled bottle is very useful - and small containers to hold the solutions.
• Old or non-precious brushes. I think bleach would eat any natural bristle
• Bamboo pens or sticks to draw with - likewise bleach would destroy a metal pen nib
• Watercolour or drawing paper - different types will give different results. I masked the edges with tape.
• Things to add texture - sponges, toothbrush, paper towel.

Prepare your paper with ink washes. Vary the dilutions - with Quink you'll see the black separate in places into blue and orangey pigments.

 Add textures if you like, flick on ink or bleach solution, dab with paper towel or a sponge - experiment. Allow to dry - or if you start working into the wash while still damp it will give softer edges.

 Dilute a little bleach with water in a small container. It seems to work just as well as full strength. Have your reference material or photo at the ready.

 I started by bleaching out the negative shapes in my leaf design with an old paintbrush

 Adding lines with a bamboo pen - if you dilute the bleach more you can get less stark lines

 and some pattern or cross hatching

 If you like you can go back in with ink washes, lines and splashes

Not my most successful result, but the more you play around, the more options you'll come up with, and are sure to encounter some happy accidents along the way. I can't vouch for the archival qualities of this method - I've heard that the paper will eventually deteriorate but so far my earlier drawings have survived. Have fun!