Kalahari Bookshop

The Kalahari Bookshop in Orange Grove is a cavern of delights for anyone who would take the time to sift through its groaning shelves, boxes and bookcases to find their particular brand of fascination (or if you're in a hurry, ask the knowledgeable owner Richard for help). I gladly accepted an invitation, along with a few friends, to join artist Tim Quirke in this tucked-away shop's day off - a Monday - to draw in this stacked to the ceiling space. 

Tim was working on a painting, and chatting to us about his methods and approach while the rest of us sketched, as we do, recording the moment in this nostalgic corner of Johannesburg. It was really hard to keep my mind on my sketch when titles that lined my childhood bookshelves kept catching my eye and drawing me to them with squeals of recognition.

After a morning chatting about art, by lunchtime we'd agreed to return over the next few Mondays to continue drawing and painting and learning from Tim the much he has to teach us. So that's what I've been doing over the last three weeks, instead of straightening the house after the weekend, laundry and keeping up with emails and blogging (and Inktober, more of which later), it's been pure indulgence in the world of tone, pattern and observation, which of course is all good!

The sketches below are studies of shape, flow, volume, light and dark, pattern, trying to make sense of the jigsaw of shapes. Hand-toned paper helps to convey something of the feel of the shop and its vintage, well-loved contents as a base for painting on later. While in theory I know of this approach to composition - notan, grouping of lights and darks to form passages - I'm very happy to feel I'm at last starting to figure out, with guidance, how to do it in a real situation...something that's mostly escaped me up to now.

To add to the alchemy, Richard's assistant Arthur kindly sits for us - he could possibly have stepped straight out of one of the books towering over us.
Next on this final (I think!) version, more light and dark passages following the studies above it, and some colour - I'll keep you posted, eventually!

Coffee in Rosebank

Oh - just discovered a draft I forgot to post... just some back views of people choosing their refreshments at Exclusive Books coffeeshop in Rosebank while I indulged in coffee and cheesecake, and some guerrilla sketching. I look out for people with interesting clothes or hats or hairdos  - makes the sketches a bit livelier!

Coffee in Rosebank

Oh - this was a draft I forgot to post... just some back views of people choosing their refreshments at Exclusive Books coffeeshop in Rosebank while I indulged in coffee and cheesecake, and some guerrilla sketching.

The Art of Urban Sketching is here!

 I'm not sure if I was absolutely the last Urban Sketchers correspondent to receive my copy of The Art of Urban Sketching, but I was getting very worried watching them arrive everywhere from the Caribbean to Turkey to New Zealand and no little white slip in my postbox... but at last on Monday there it was and I rushed off to fetch it, racing home again to open the box and turn the pages from the first to the last. As I say in my sidebar, it is a treasure trove - of sketches, sketching experiences, stories, tips and inspiration from all around the world - and is going to keep me enthralled and engrossed for many hours, over and over again.

I am so proud to be included in this collection with the talented, varied and versatile artists who have contributed to the book, and am ever grateful to Gabi Campanario aka The Seattle Sketcher. First of all for starting this global community, then inviting me to represent my city and country in sketches, expanding my horizons beyond what I ever imagined - through discovering my own city more deeply and intimately, online sharing, the Lisbon symposium that made some of my virtual friends three dimensional and real and introduced me to the new experience of tutoring - and now this wonderful book, which entailed many, many long hours of planning, design, emailing, downloading, curating, compilation and editing for Gabi and his family.

I had to show off my pages here, just a fraction of what this fat, generous book holds in store. I would encourage anyone at all interested in urban sketching or travel to get a copy, ASAP!

Now for something completely different

Here are a few of the illustrations I've been doing for my friend Jill's book - she and her daughter were bemoaning the fact that bible stories for children seem to be so drearily boring, so she wrote a little dotty poem about The Prodigal Son and asked me to draw the pictures. I've ended up illustrating just about every line, and really having fun doing it - taking some creative licence with what those old testament chaps would have had at their disposal - soccer balls and photographs were most certainly off their radar screens, as, in fact, were radar screens. She is taking it to try out on her two grandsons in Sydney, Australia next week, so I have to get a move on and get a mock-up made. If the little boys really love it, we might try and take it further...
Just playing around again with watercolour paint makes me think that it is my favourite medium - I love the unpredictable things it does, and the also the things that traditional w/c painters frown upon - the 'cauliflower' splodges and drips.