The Fairest Cape

We're just back from a visit to Cape Town, for a birthday and a short holiday. We thought we'd be going into the notorious Cape of Storms, with weather forecasts of raging gales and torrential rain as we left Joburg - but after a day or two of drizzle and greyness, we got "The Fairest Cape in all the World" (Sir Francis Drake) instead - sparkling sunshine, blue and white sea, awe-inspiring mountains, autumnal vineyards... at its best it has to be about the most beautiful place on earth!We did lots of socialising and driving (had to take full advantage of unlimited free miles in the hired car!) so my watercolours remained untouched and the sketching I did was in 15 to 20 minute sessions, usually around a meal. The sketch above was done from the 'Green Room' we rented in Camps Bay high above the sea, which was a good thing, as that was where all the storm action was. I added colour at home from photos - the day I sketched it was grey and misty. I've gazed in awe at these magnificent cliffside homes over the years and never dreamt I'd ever get to stay in one. As our hostess said, they found a piece of paradise when they bought here 20 or so years ago.

This was over breakfast on Sunday morning from a beachfront café - everything was lined up in rows...waves, cars (I managed to draw the back of a car resting on the front of an SUV - it wasn't really so!) , palm trees, umbrellas, restaurants... We went for a walk along the beach later and saw the aftermath of the storm - thick cappacino foam all over the sea and sand, kelp knotted around every protuberance and beach chairs that were chained together to a post broken, battered and buried. Who would be a sailor!?
An inexpertly pieced together montage of photos taken from the road at the back of our apartment - the mountain range called the Twelve Apostles

Egg and biscuit

A special request from my friend Jill - a little painting of, and the recipe for, the biscuits we had for tea this morning - they were jolly nice and easy to make. What you do is:

Melt together: 4 oz/110g butter, 3oz/75g sugar (demerara or I used light brown) and 1 dessertspoon syrup or runny honey..... Sift 4oz/110g self-raising flour with a pinch of salt... Add 4oz/110g porridge oats and 2oz/50g dried cranberries... mix together evenly then pour in the syrup mixture. Stir well then form a dough with your hands... roll walnut-size bits into balls and press onto worktop... scatter more cranberries plus some flaked almonds on top and press gently in. Transfer to a baking sheet with a palette knife and bake at 350*F/170*C for 10 minutes. Let them cool on the tray for 10 mins before moving.

And I had to paint one of our farm eggs that we bought at the market too - not that it looks any different to any other egg, I'm sure, to the casual observer, but it is a very very big and pretty egg, being a gentle creamy colour instead of the standard brown or very white eggs we usually get. I seem to be seeing a lot of painting of white subjects lately - maybe just noticing more of them - and think it's something I must try to get better at. This white hen eggcup was really hard to paint - there's lots of scrubbing out of areas where I made it too dark, and some white crayon and pen on top where I added highlights, and some of my preserved white highlights are in the wrong places - lots more practice needed!

Food for the soul

Been very busy making those red windmills for the children at church to wave around on Pentecost Sunday in a couple of days, so just some quick sketches in my journal (also inspired by Martha at Trumpetvine Travels who paid me a visit yesterday, and who makes fantastic sketch journals).
I've been wanting to draw my breakfast for a long time - I just love it, though it takes a lot of chopping and mixing and chewing - keeps me going for hours. I discovered though, that it's not as healthy as I thought - the fruit has a lot of sugar and the granola a lot of fat, so I add more oats and make the portions smaller, except when there are delicious raspberries, and granadillas, and gooseberries and...and..