Joziburg Lane

After days of unrelenting (but welcome) rain and a forecast for more we headed for cover on our monthly sketch date last week and returned to Joziburg Lane in the city. This is a food, retail and residential refurbishment of some old buildings, including what was known as Motortown, where Chrysler, Rolls Royce and other car brands were based back in the day, before inner-city decline set in and they moved north to the suburbs.

I leaned against my car bonnet and sketched from the windows of the rooftop parking lot - I loved the curves, waves, angles and textures laid out beneath me, and the window shapes helped me to place them on the pages of my concertina Moleskine. As you may know, buildings and architecture are extremely challenging for me - I found myself getting more and more irritated with drawing all the details, when I knew I didn't want details, and my hand got more impatiently scribbly as I went along... until suddenly I realised I was enjoying myself again with almost handwriting-like shortcuts to describe the background buildings.

I decided I really wanted some of the many textures of the rooftops and used white wax crayon before going over with watercolour - not such a great idea as the effects were pretty unpredictable. When I got home I also added bits onto my pages to take some of the buildings up to their proper heights - what would Johannesburg city be without the Carlton Centre, once the tallest building in Africa?

With cramped legs from standing so long, I trekked down the 'Forever Stairs' - there isn't a lift yet - to the food court at the bottom of the building where I met the rest of our group for lunch. We left just before the afternoon/evening event was about to start, a pity as some pretty funky musicians were arriving that would have made great subjects for sketching.

I've just realised I haven't posted the sketches from my other trips to Joziburg Lane here, so for the record...

...some early musicians from their Birthday Bash for Joburg's 130th anniversary, and the huge birthday cake in the food court (also unfortunately before the crowds arrived - I think I'm getting too old for the hustle and bustle of these social happenings) and the last two from a quiet weekday morning...shopkeepers and restaurant staff at a bit of a loose end waiting for customers, in front of a wall mural that those little plants are eventually going to be trained up.

A Medieval Fayre

Gosh! Experimenting with scrolling through a long image and astonished to find it seems to be working (please let me know if it's not, for you - doesn't work on my phone). ...The scrolling image has also disappeared from my view, so reverting to separate images of my long long concertina format.
This was from an event Joburg Sketchers were invited to, the Neigh-Bours Medieval Country Fayre, at Inanda Country Base way up north in horse country. I used a long sheet of paper folded into a concertina format and started at one end and sketched through to the other. It gives an idea of the wide expanse of very dry Highveld end-of-winter landscape, although the day itself was baking hot and we sought out every bit of shade we could find.I found one solid spot and stayed put, which was fine as the parade passed by without me having to move too much.

Well, I hope I can do that again if I have to, it involves html codes and posting your long image on Flickr (or some other cloud) first. I might try and make it bigger...

Still no Blog List reappeared.

Sky High in Jozi

I'm sorry Blog for neglecting you so long - one of the reasons I started here was to motivate myself to do more drawing and art - right now I'm doing so much I find no time to report back!

On the painting course that has just come to an end, was a lovely person who works for the company who built the student apartments that I've been drawing as it progressed. Jill got us an invitation to come and sketch at the top of the newly finished block, bringing to a pinnacle (I won't say end - I hope to go back) a serendipitous urban series that I had no idea was happening when I started. Mill Junction has the most astonishing 360° view of Johannesburg and its southern/western suburbs - at last was the perfect time and place to dust off my Japanese fold Moleskine that we excitingly found in our goodie bags at the Lisbon Urban Sketchers Symposium three years ago.
I sketched fast, trying not to get bogged down in details and get as much done as possible in the time, but it was the first Suddenly Summer day after winter (blink and you miss Spring) and extremely hot up there, so after only about 90° and four hours I had to call it a day. And I did do details - it was fascinating to see how streets that I've driven on and around for years connect and intertwine with landmarks, familiar buildings and each other.
Students started drifting up to start fires for their Friday evening braais (barbeques) in the beautifully designed recreation area up there, and the sketchers reluctantly returned to earth and the more familiar street level view of this ugly/beautiful city, and its high-walled suburbs.

Leaving on a jetplane...

Random sketches while getting visas, vaccinations, hairdo's, shopping, etc.

My poor blog feels so neglected, it's run by a scatterbrain who can hardly walk and chew gum at the same time and who has had to plan, shop, clean, sew, prepare, pack, co-ordinate, think... oh all way beyond her capabilities. But with time, and help from my nearest and dearest, I am almost, almost ready to depart on Sunday for this long awaited trip. First a much needed and welcome break in the bush with beloved family, and then... a week later... the chance to meet and talk and sketch and teach and learn and interact with an enormous gathering of excited and exciting sketchers from all over the world - at the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Lisbon - I can't believe it's here at last after six months of anticipation. I don't have an iPad or laptop or Blackberry to report back as I go, but I'll be doing more sketching than ever before in my life... and will post as many as I can as soon as I can  - we are spending a few more days in Portugal, looking around, and then visiting our daughter in France, so will be back in early August. Until then, adeus, tchau, até logo...

Just before I go... some sketches from last Saturday's Joburg Sketchers outing to the Bryanston Organic Market - first at one of the outdoor cafés, then the musicians at another. I bought some embroidery (which I scanned and added to my sketch) from Happy at her stall 'Out of Alex' - Alexandra being a large township nearby. I went back to the market a few days later, for some other things, and asked if I could sketch her, which she 'happily' agreed to. She insisted I put her stall number 22 in the sketch so that if any of you make your way to the Bryanston market, you be sure to go and say hello.

ChristmasTree

...Southern Hemisphere style... this is the yellowwood (our national tree) which my husband planted about ten years ago in our garden, full and lush from all the rain we've had, and looking like it just wants some fairy lights and an angel on the top to fit in perfectly with the season. I painted this on Sunday with watercolours and a bit of gouache, when the sun was baking down and the last thing you want to think about is roast turkey and rich pudding - which we will, nevertheless, come sun or high temperatures, gamely manage to wolf down in in a week or two's time. But Christmastime here is of course very different from the festive, snowy and cosy scenes I'm seeing on overseas blogs lately - if I can find time to paint them and you have time to look, I'll bring you some glimpses of Christmas a la Joburg in the next few posts.

Another bit of garden

I painted this after I'd done the jacaranda tree on Sunday. It's a tangle of elder, plumbago and jasmine - which has died down now. The brown bit at the top is our shingle roof. As you can see, the garden is not very well tended, but I rather like tangles and under- and overgrowth (luckily!) We had a huge hailstorm the other day so all this is looking a bit bedraggled and the jacaranda flowers are mostly on the ground.

I've just found this old watercolour I did of a plumbago flower, one of our indigenous and drought resistant plants, that I painted for a friend, who uses it on her business (called Plumbago Blu) card. That's what the blueish smudges in my Sunday sketch are!

Jacaranda time

It doesn't seem a year ago that I was painting jacarandas in flower, but here they are again. This is in our garden - it jostles for position with a yellowwood, a stray little privet and a tall cyprus. We've had lots of wind, hail and rainstorms this year so the blossoms look a little sparser than usual.

Watching TV

I am having trouble getting going in this new year - recovering now from watching the wondrous events in Washington into the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Congratulations

America on your exciting and inspiring new president - we, and most of South Africa I'm sure, were enthralled at the event, the crowds, the jubilation (reminding us of our own historic elections in 1994) and the message of honesty, fair play and hard work. I hope that Africa's despots were watching, and quaking in their ill-gotten palaces at these words:

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West -- know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.
To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history.

Amen!

Right! Back to the watercolours - this is another rainy-day painting I did of my son's friend Julian while on holiday. The likeness is quite good - he has the most startlingly blue eyes, dark lashes, full curling lips and rosy cheeks, but I've made him look more sulky than he does really. Also I made my old mistake of trying to squeeze his long legs onto my small page - I did a digital adjustment here on the right making the legs bigger, looking more foreshortened and it helps to make him look more relaxed in the chair. I need to get back to some figure drawing classes!

What's going on?!...fixed!!

***Well this is weird... no matter what I do, this image loads vertically instead of horizontally, as it always was in the process of painting, photographing and editing it! I didn't rotate it in my editing programme originally... I tried rotating it at 90 deg and saving it again so that it might upload the right way, but nope... before I write any more about it, does anyone have a clue what's happened - is it the nasty phisherman that I clicked on in my comments a while back? Is it Blogger? Help! (I have reported it to Blogger - hope they fix it)

***Oh Voila, frabjous day... I fixed it - made a new jpg from a previously saved Tif file, and it's righted itself. Don't ask me why but it has.

... Cola belongs to our good kind and generous friends who welcomed us warmly and shared their lovely holiday home with us - a little cross-foxie SPCA special, she was so picturesque curled up on the green and aqua-blue throws that during some of the rainy/windy/coolish hours, I kept my paints at the ready for when she struck this pose in various spots around the lounge. It was never long before she found something else to be off doing, so this watercolour (Fabriano accordion sketchbook - 180 x 250 mm) was done over quite a few days. Cola has a 'big brother' Pepsi, a most beautiful German Shepherd cross-goodness-knows, who I would also like to have painted, but when he isn't bounding around the coastline, he collapses in very hairy heaps behind the sofas, looking more like a huge furry rug than a dog. I think a photo reference for him will be necessary. I left this one with Judi and Russ as a very small token of thanks - think I owe them a biggie!

Last sea sketches

The last of my sea sketches - that's a seagull sitting on top of the beacon, which the kids swim out to as a rite of passage into bragging rights beach-champ status. I hope to do a proper painting or two at some stage from them when my studio is sorted - I wish I'd done that for the start of the new year so I could get started while full of enthusiasm and energy from the break.

We once stayed in that house on the cliff for a long weekend - it's called 'Listen to the Ocean', and of course that song runs endlessly through my head whenever I see it - fantastic views up and down the coastline, and back towards Kassies Baai village, a national monument with it's famous 200 year old white fisherman's cottages, painted countless hundreds of times by artists over the years. I felt too voyeurish to sit there and sketch people's homes but I took a few photos from a distance and may paint from those too.

Listen to the ocean,

echoes of a million seashells

Forever it's in motion

Moving to a rhythmic and unwritten music

That's played eternally

Seaside studies

The beach was very crowded when I sketched this - our quiet retreat that we've been enjoying on and off over the last thirty years or so, has been discovered in a big way. There were many more people than I've painted here. One of the few really sunny days we had... and the only bits of me sticking out of cover - my inner knees - got horribly sunburnt! A few curious but polite children came to look over my shoulder. This was in my hand-folded Fabriano accordion sketchbook 250x175mm.

Back to the little moleskine and the first bemused attempts to capture the constant motion, colours and mysteries of the beautiful sea. What a joy, even though I feel I need another lifetime to even begin to succeed at this impossible task.

Toot-too-toot-toot!!

I thought these Inca lilies/alstroemeria looked a bit like trumpets blasting a little tune - it's Sketch in Time's first birthday! I'm so pleased to still be here - I really wasn't sure that I would keep it up for long, but it's been an enormous pleasure. Got me off my backside as far as drawing, painting or sketching almost daily, helped me to hone in on some of my real interests - rediscovered lovely watercolours after long years of neglect... and meeting all of you, artists, bloggers - some quite awe-inspiring in their proficiency, others fellow-travellers on the way, it's always a joy to see what's coming off your brushes, pencils and pens - and interested visitors... thanks to everyone who's dropped in to have a look and sometimes to leave a comment, I feel part of a very warm and giving community... and look!! I got a present!...

...from Ronell at African Tapestry. Coming from her, one of my blogging, sketching icons who I watched for ages before launching myself forth into the blogosphere, it's a real honour. In her reasons for passing on the award to me... "experiments with all kinds of media, who often tries new directions, new techiniques, new approaches." I think it's called ADD, Ronell, but thanks so much!
And thanks to my sisters, Gillian and Vivienne, who've joined me in this venture - blogging has been a fantastic way to keep in touch with each other's lives over great distances and peep into the little details that make you seem a lot closer - keep going, girls!
Right, onwards and upwards into the next year, whatever it may bring, I hope I'll be sketching it...

White azaleas

I should have been ironing, but it's a beautiful day and the white azalea bush is in full bloom, so I thought I'd carry on with the quest to learn to paint white subjects in watercolour. I had to do quick sketches in my accordian sketchbook, as, really, it's piling up into a huge mountain (the washing). What I think I learnt from these two - the first rather carefully done with much concentration and squinting, the second dashed off while waiting for the washes on the first to dry - is, not to squint and concentrate so hard...I prefer the second one...and fewer but larger areas, or shapes, of pure white ie. the paper, seems to produce more of the clean, sunlit look I'm after. I still have to work on the subtle colour changes within the white, and tone and shadow and some more soft edges... The dog felt it beholden upon him to bark and wildly chase after everyone who walked past our front gate, near which I was sitting on an upturned bucket, so any interesting textural effects are from him kicking up sand into my palette.

Fast fast slow

This is the view from the glass doors of my little studio - it was another glorious autumn day and actually a pleasure to be outside hanging up washing and instead of going back inside, I went into the studio and sketched the washing. The big dark shadow it threw interested me, so I painted that again. I have vague plans for this piece of garden including herbs, flowers, arches and water, but it has to also contain the washing line - there is just no other place for it...
I really need to slow down on my watercolour painting, or at least spend more time planning it. I'm not really getting past this sketchy stage - very impatient to get everything down as fast as possible. I want to keep a loose fresh quality, but also be a bit more accurate with the information - those trees in the background of the first one are just scribbled. After this I started drawing my paintbrushes perhaps to send in for Vivien Blackburn's project... very painstakingly and slowly to train myself to look more and slow down. Now that I've re-read her challenge, I see it's sketching your paintbrushes, so perhaps I should hurry it up again. Sigh.

Irises are Blue

...or should that be Irii...and purple? While I was waiting for the red roses to dry yesterday, I painted this iris that I had begged from an arrangement. Iris was my grandmother's name - such an old-fashioned, charming name. While I love them, I marvel at their colour scheme - they must epitomise the theory that nothing in nature clashes! It must be the exact shade and proportions of the colours to each other that allow these complementaries to sing together so well. I vividly (an accurate word!) remember a substitute teacher that came to look after my Standard 3 class when I was 10 years old. She was resplendant in mauve and yellow alternating from head to toe - including gloves and hat and neckscarf and stockings and yellow hair. I felt quite nauseous, but couldn't take my eyes off her as she preened and paraded at the front of the class, perhaps thinking that these scruffy little girls were enraptured at the glamour and sophistication of her outfit. I think it was the first time I thought about what I didn't want to look like when I grew up!
Anyway, I went back to my iris today to paint it again, and the edges had curled and turned brown - the result of a too hot car trip home - so here is the wilted version...

This isn't easy you know

Now I've gone and ruined my accordion sketchbook, trying to draw the dog and cat in one of their covoluted sleeping poses - from a photo up on the computer screen, as they always move the minute I start trying to draw them. I got both of these attempts completely wrong.

This was slightly more accurate, though the dog is too small, and his face a bit weird - I painted the big shapes first, then added the lines with my bamboo pen, (which isn't drawing as well as I'd hoped - I have little control over whether lines are thick or thin, or come out at all) and the values are all very bland - the dog and cushion they sleep on are rather similiar in tone, but Kenzo the cat could go much darker.

It's interesting to see today's Making a Mark post about mechanical and optical aids... I find myself feeling irritated and tense when sketching from photos, though they are definitely a useful tool when trying to remember features of a landscape, for instance - as long as I don't follow them too slavishly.

This sketch of Gucci (excuse the undignified pose!) that I did quickly after messing up the Fabriano was much more enjoyable, and I think is a lot more expressive in line and character. So - conclusion, I think drawing from life is my thing. I'll be happy to leave the photo-realism to others - for now, anyway. (I tend to make sweeping statements one week and back-peddle on them the next)

Accordion to me...

I have been enjoying Laurelines vivid sketches she's been doing in an accordion sketchbook, so I was thrilled to find out how to make one myself , using Nina Johansson's simple instructions - out of a sheet of Fabriano paper - I was intending to take it to the beach over Easter, but that little holiday didn't happen - so I took it into the garden today to try and sketch a eucalyptus tree that I love for its silvery blue-green leaves. As is my way, I started much too big, so got mostly trunk on the page... and had to go up, up into the next page, and only squeezed a little bit of the foliage around the edges. I don't think its a very well eucalyptus tree - the top of the gate bangs into it, and it started weeping gum from the wound, and has now developed very interesting colours and textures all down the bark, with a bare strip on one side. I hope it's not a mortal wound, and I sure hope it doesn't topple over onto my car which is parked nearby.

The paper I used in the sketchbook is a bit heavy to fold easily, so the paint really gathers in the crease, and I think it might crack after much opening and closing, but it is good for watercolour sketching - especially when you pile on as much as I did here. I need to fit the sketches on only one sheet at a time. P.S. (I apologise for the appalling pun in the title to this post!)