Chinese New Year at Nan Hua

The Worldwide Sketchcrawl where urban sketchers around the world planned to sketch their city's Chinese New Year celebrations was on Saturday 28 January. Johannesburg had at least three CNY celebrations in different venues - one that night in 'Old Chinatown' in Commissioner St in the city; one the following day at the Nan Hua Buddhist Temple near a town called Bronkhorstspruit, about an hour and a half's drive from Joburg - the one we decided to go to as a place we'd always wanted to visit; and another a week later in 'New Chinatown' in Cyrildene, east of the city. So we missed the official Crawl, but our spirit was with everybody (and as someone said, it's still the 28th somewhere!)

Our carload of five sketchers arrived just too late for the opening ceremony with Dancing Dragon, firecrackers, and other spectacles - I thought there'd be more but that was it. We gathered at the entrance - an encouragingly large group of us - just in time to see the dragon being folded away into its trailer. The first pen I grabbed out my bag flew to catch those few moments before it disappeared, and I think it's my favourite sketch of the day!

The many temples and shrines around the arena were beautiful subjects, and I had a go, but attempting the intricacies of those was going to take too long, so I tried some sketching shorthand with squiggly lines and loose washes. I wanted to capture some of the people - two sweet little girls in their New Year best, their big brother escaped before I got him on paper.

There were loads of food stalls lining the passages around the centre courtyard, and even more people trying to buy it... I didn't try hauling out a sketchbook and pen in the crush, but managed to get hold of a spring roll and settled to sketch one of the picnic groups with greasy fingers.

The Wishing Tree, where you have your name inscribed in Chinese calligraphy on a ribbon with a medallion attached, and throw it up into the tree while you make a wish. If the ribbon sticks there, your wish will come true during this Year of the Red Rooster. I didn't risk it! Nan Hua is a huge place and apparently we missed lots more interesting sights and events, but that was about all I could manage in the heat and crowds before the long drive home.

Printing and sketching at WAM

I'm sorry my posting is so erratic - I have been painting, but nothing I feel quite OK with showing anyone. Oil painting feels a bit like wading through mud right now... hoping it will change into a flowing stream soon, I'll keep trying.

It was a busy sketching weekend though, with a friend's wedding on Friday. I may post those sketches later as they need a bit of work. I've sketched at a few now, and it's hard to convey all the colour, ceremony, movement and emotional importance of weddings on the spot. I always hope for much better results than I get and I would like to give them something worth keeping!

On Saturday our group went to the Wits Art Museum where a Walter Battiss exhibition is on, and a children's printmaking workshop. I had already had a good look at the exhibition a couple of weeks ago, so I concentrated on the oblivious back views of the people looking at the art. We went to the coffee shop to find the children's workshop in full swing. There were a lot more kids and adults than I could fit into my sketch but it was great to see a museum space being used to stimulate children into actually making art themselves instead of being passive (and often bored) onlookers. The tall photographer did double duty as one of the few who could reach the drying lines.

Finishing things

Over the last few months, on and off, I've been spending time in the studio determined to finish a whole bunch of half-done paintings - for better or for worse!  

These you may (or well may not) recognise from a previous post on Greg Kerr's Objets Trouvé workshop in 2014. Below are some of the stages these 60 x 60 cm paintings have gone through, some rather tortuously, via a series of processes. Splashing, rolling and printing paint onto the canvases with an underlying prepared motif  - mine our birdbath - which had to consist of organic and geometric forms. Interventions followed of adding textures, patterns and elements - some prescribed by Greg (each painting had an element taken from someone else in the class's paintings, to explain some strange additions... the crystal, the water tower, the child swimming, the sardine tin) as we worked through the course, some added tentatively or recklessly by me as I eventually took the plunge and tried to leave dependency on the teacher behind me.

Often I wished I could backtrack to a previous stage of simplicity or clarity, and in the one with the child swimming (I changed my classmate's child into my daughter) I was at the point of scrapping the whole thing but decided that more might be more and carried on adding flowers and fishes and glazes... it may still be scrapped...or cropped down to just the little girl swimming...or I could add the kitchen sink...

With changes and a move from Joburg sometime in the not too distant future, I have to finish and clear out so much stuff I don't know where to start. Painting is the relatively easy bit, I have to get them out of here!

Shark Party

One of my great-nephews had his fourth 'Shark' themed birthday party last week (still not quite keeping up). That means three years since I did this post on his first birthday party... I'm not sure why I haven't sketched at any of his older brother's birthday parties, possibly just too much to take in and put on a page. At least at this one, they were more or less contained in a swimming pool for some of the time! It seemed appropriate to colour my quick pen sketch with children's felt tip markers... I should have got there earlier to draw the terrific food table with sharky birthday cake, watermelon bowl, brownies with fins etc - they didn't last long after the little guests arrived!

I recently added a Search widget to A Sketch in Time... why didn't I do that years ago? Within seconds I found all references to "birthday party", and the other day when I wanted to remind myself how to make a home-made scraperboard - pop - there it was. I sometimes despair of ever keeping up with all the techie stuff available, but this one was worth the head-scratching!

Inanda Country Base

Sorry to be so scarce, so much going on - more on my to-do lists than actually getting done, but I don't  function very well when pre-occupied, as I am. I should be back to normal after July and my daughter's wedding, but the days when I had long hours to sketch, post, visit lots of blogs and leave comments, seem to be a very distant, nostalgic memory! Thank you to everyone who continue to visit and comment, I so appreciate it - and it was lovely to hear from some old familiar friends recently!
These were from a sketchday at Inanda Country Base stables about 2 weeks ago. I'm not very used to horses, or drawing them, and was disconcerted by how very large and curious they were - they had to come right up and see what we were doing, and attempt a nibble at brushes and watercolours. I feel I'd need to spend a few weeks just looking to do them justice, but could only stay a couple of hours. I spotted a figure coming towards me down the avenue and quickly sketched her before she reached and walked past me. Then the little group of children gathered around and delightedly recognised my sketch as the youngest child's mother. That was it, they had to draw, and be drawn, and were gratifyingly thrilled with it all. Hopefully it will have sparked an interest for life..?

Kidsweek at Concourt

 I found an email in my blog inbox last week from the Director of the Constitutional Court Educational Programme, Paula Rainha - just in time to take up her invitation to come and sketch at the Constitutional Court with some children from Hillbrow. It was the last day of their Kidsweek, a holiday programme (coincidentally started years ago by a friend, Monique Dalka) where they came to learn and draw some of the aspects of the court. This was a sketch of a group of the kids who were drawing portraits from a wall of photographs of past and present judges.

They first went into the courtroom, to ask and hear about human rights, our constitution and the history and significance of the buildings. Constitutional Hill used to be the notorious Old Fort Prison Complex where many political activists, including Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Walter Sisulu were detained. Every detail of the court has been thoughtfully and beautifully designed by architects and artists. Two whole books have been published on the buildings and art here: A Light on the Hill and Art and Justice, I won't try and explain it all here...

...but for a start, the angled and mosaiced columns and wire leaf chandeliers in the foyer represent the tree under which African justice has traditionally taken place, transparent, participatory and accessible - which also appears in the Concourt logo. Long may its principles last...

Below is a sketch I did last year on a visit with a friend, of the outside entrance, with the long wooden doors carved by artists and Dumile Feni's 'History' sculpture. One of my very first, nervous urban sketches was done at a book launch here, back in 2008!

Shepstone Gardens

On Monday a group of us went to Shepstone Gardens, a Heritage site and a busy wedding and events venue. It is a whole conglomeration of stone constructions - houses, chapels, pathways, walls, a garden shed and a studio, commissioned by the Modderfontein Dynamite Company and built around the turn of the century by Afrikaners after the Anglo Boer War - from 1 000 tons of quartz rock. Apparently Mahatma Gandhi stayed on and off in the encampment at the foot of the ridge, while his friend, the architect Kallenbach was building.

The first sketch I did there is on its way as a postcard in the Postcards from my Walk project, so I won't show it yet. (my last one never reached its destination in California, so holding thumbs for this one!)

I had another prepared splashy watercolour sheet in my sketchbook and the blues and browns fitted well into the shape of the wedding chapel, so that was my next subject.

There was a little boy looking like he needed something to do (he was on school holidays and his dad was working in the Gardens) on the lawn next to me so I offered him a sketchbook and pencil, which he shyly but eagerly accepted. He told me his name was Gift, and he spent the next hour or more drawing intently - watching me looking up and down and sketching, and then following suit. I think he indeed has a gift, to be so young - in Grade 2 so not more than 6 or 7 - and concentrate for so long on his carefully observed drawing. I left him my pencil, I think I'll go back with a sketchbook - a possible young urban sketcher/artist/architect in the making!

Drummies and Roundabouts

 I'm slaving away with clay at the moment for my Dinner Party project, and enjoying it immensely - takes me right back to my plasticine days and making tiny bowls of fruit to feed my tiny make-believe family. But I'm not ready to show and tell yet, so here are some sketches I did with our Joburg group at Marks Park just before we went away.

A junior baseball tournament was about to get under way, and there were drum majorettes directed by a rather camp coach, children (I'm sketching a lot of children lately!) playing on a roundabout and the players lining up for their march past. Some dads kept going over to the roundabout and telling the boys to get off in case they hurt themselves - and then wouldn't be fit to play baseball - no such concern for the girls and tiny tots who were whizzing around! 

 

Puppets and Drums

Joburg Sketchers went to the Alliance Francaise on Saturday, where they were having a children's day with stories, marionettes, drumming workshops and more. We tucked ourselves into corners of the room and enjoyed with the kids the expert manipulations of Alida van Deventer, the puppeteer, who made her characters come completely to life. I rather wished I was watching her more attentively, as I missed some of the wonderful show while recording some of the puppets and the children's reactions. It can't be easy to entertain children who've grown up on a diet of exciting, amazingly illustrated and 3 dimensional movies, computer and TV games, but they were enthralled.

Then came the drums and tales to go with them, each child joining in with the rhythm and chorus of the drumbeats - I felt like doing that too! But sketching them was a good second option. One dad who was looking over my shoulder asked if I'd sketch his two children, which I did very quickly, trying to remain calm as I worried more about likenesses - I got the little boy's eyes a bit squiffy as they darted from the storyteller to me, but Dad was happy and invited me to his restaurant in exchange after I gave him the sketch. You never know where sketching will take you next!

If you go down to the woods today...

...and you haven't been around 20 or so tots for a while, it is a big surprise! I'd forgotten how non-stop full-on go-go they can be. It was my nephew's baby's first birthday party on Saturday and I set myself an impossible task trying to capture all the little people that were toddling, crawling and dashing around, while negotiating some sticky hands grasping at my pen and offering me spitty sausages - but I got a few, and a couple twice.

photo: Huw Morris

We brought teddy bears for the Nkanyesi Day Care Centre for children with cerebral palsy in Soweto, a little way to share the happiness of this occasion with babies who aren't so lucky.

Happy Thanksgiving

...to my dear American family, and friends, many of whom I've made through this virtual window to the world, and viewers known and unknown - though we don't formally celebrate, I am thankful for you all. I have to confess to being relieved that I don't have to produce a large meal with pumpkin pie, when major festivities are coming up in a months time, but I am extraordinarily thankful for my husband (who would probably have to cook the Thanksgiving meal if truth be told), family and friends here at home, and those that soon will be home again.
The watercolour is one I did years ago from a photograph of my daughters at a funfair (the blond one at the back is returning home from seeing the world in less than a week - whee!) and wasn't very pleased with at the time - the painting that is, not the daughter - but now I've unearthed it again, it brings warm, happy feelings of nostalgia, and gratitude that these little girls have grown up into the wonderful independent young women they are. Their little brother wasn't born yet when this was taken, but I think I feel a blog post of his own coming on, as he moves from one life stage into another and my maternal role goes through churnings and adjustments.

Shells

Back to oil paints, I'm really switching around mediums in my eternal quest to find my forté and my style. This was admittedly also a practical choice - I painted it for everyONEcounts, an iniative for artists to raise funds for the care of abandoned babies in South Africa by donating artworks to be exhibited and sold - and oil on a gallery wrap canvas doesn't need framing and is, I hope, sturdier to be sent to Kwazulu Natal where the exhibition is to be held. All paintings are 12"x12" or 30x30cm. I spent ages thinking about how to interpret the theme 'every one counts', and scrummaging around my shelves for inspiration came upon a bag of seashells collected over beach holidays over the years. They seemed to speak to me, of multitudes and aloneness... of fragility and strength, difference and similiarity, intricacy and simplicity, abundance and preciousness, shelter and vulnerability. If you think too much about shells you can hardly bear to crush one underfoot.

Off to see the world

Another daughter has ventured forth and flown off to London to find her feet - if not her fortune. In January last year I did a post about her sister going off to Dubai, and dug out some old sketches I'd done of her. This child, being the one who never sat still, and then later who was always 'out', has far fewer of my efforts expended on her, I had to really scratch to find these. I suspect we may hear more of her news now that she's far away than I did when she was home, in between work, netball, yoga, party, party, party, scuba-diving, rock climbing and just hanging out with her friends. Well I hope so anyway!
Though none of these sketches look terribly like her, they all remind me of the various stages of her childhood. Endlessly interested six-year old, happy confident niner, slightly sulky sixteen-wishing-she were-somewhere-else, and sunny excited just finished school and off on her first unsupervised holiday with the ever-important friends.
She arrived at Heathrow at 5.30 this morning, and we've had a message from her to say she found her way to her destination on the tube all by herself!
God Bless, golden girl - I hope London and wherever else you roam to, will be as wonderful as your wildest dreams.

Too much for my palette

The chap who asked for the landscape a la Meyer, doesn't want that after all, but would now like a huge watercolour (a full sheet of Fabriano - what's that, about 1200x900mm?) of his children in the sea, with whole mountain ranges and reflections and two reasonable likenesses and sky with clouds and sandbanks and currents... each one of them a challenge in their own right, and altogether just beyond me. Does anyone do such big land/figurescapes in watercolour? I said no, I couldn't take it on - I saw myself throwing my entire stock of pricey little tubes of colour all over that humungous piece of paper, and sweating and swearing as I tried to spread and control them... makes me hyperventilate just thinking about it. So I did this little (148x105mm) sketch of the kids, with an itty bit of the sea - I think it's actually a lagoon - and mountains to give him as a 'thanks but no thanks' to go back with the photo album. The likenesses are pretty good, (though I don't know them, so can't be sure) but the reflections are fussy and the water overworked and the mountain darkly ominous and he'll probably think he had a narrow escape, but I think it's quite nice of me.

Sushi Sisters

The other night our daughters were presented with all the ingredients by their super shopper-and-chef Dad, and requested to make second daughter's specialty, sushi, for our supper.
They did an amazing job and brought in all their sushi-eating experience, and culinary and artistic talents, and made what looked like a mountain of fish, rice and veggie creations... my sketches really don't do them justice! They were absolutely stunning to look at...

...and we managed to polish them all off, bar four little rolls (I'm sorry, I don't know all the names given to the individual morsels), which their sibling had for lunch the next day. So scrumptious!!

Sushi aside - good grief there are a lot of 'S's cropping up in this post! - I'm dashing through everything that I'm painting or sketching so fast lately, it's making me feel quite unsettled and jittery. I have so many ideas on what I would like to paint and do, a very pleasant change from a year or so ago, when I couldn't think of a thing!... but I need to slow down and take a more considered, leisurely and contemplative approach. I'm busy spring-cleaning my studio - a major undertaking - so I can get back in there and settle down to some serious work, I hope!

Birthday Boy

It's our baby boy's birthday today - a startling seventeen years old. This is a portrait I painted of him about two years ago, and though it is like him, looked too old at the time. I think it about fits now, though there are subtle differences - and his hair is a lot longer! He wants me to paint a huge portrait in an Old Masters style, of him in a velvet jacket with a pipe and a goblet of whisky! Now should I invest hours and weeks and canvas and paint on such a whim? Would it be something that'd amuse him for another 2 or 3 years, then join the detritus in the back of his cupboard? Will he treasure it always and be a reminder of how much his mother loved him? It was so much simpler when he just wanted a birthday cake that looked like a snail...

(Oil on canvas 60 x 45 cm)

Catch her while you can

Half our sitting room has been taken over by a wedding dress, designed and made for a friend by my eldest daughter (the one now in Dubai) and which is now being beaded by her sister, Alexandra. She hardly ever sits around long enough for me to draw her, so I took advantage of her relative stillness to do a quick sketch - ignoring the grumbles - I'm sure one day she'll be glad her mother insisted on immortalising her for posterity!
The dress - actually a coat to go over a simple silk slip - is looking beautiful. It will be travelling to Canada for the wedding. I am starting to get jittery that it will be all finished in time, but am - very slowly - learning to zip my lip, trust that my children are adults and know what they're doing and will in fact get the job done without my twittering on the sidelines!

Rock pools

I've had a busy sort of a week, so nothing new to post, but as I'm also using this blog as a record, this is an old watercolour of my son at the rock pools at Kidds Beach, Eastern Cape - a place with very precious memories for all our family. It's painted from a photograph taken by my sister Gillian, who always takes beautiful photographs, and remembers to take them at special times in her and our lives - unlike me, who has big holes in her albums. I submitted this to a local watercolour society competition and it came back with the comment - 'Nice reflections, dog has three legs'... which put me in my place! I'm sorry I cropped it at the top - there was plenty of paper left up there, and room for the sea and sky to tower over the little figures. And I made my very blonde child into a brunette, overworking the hair.

A Haircut

I did some very quick line sketches when I took my son to the hairdresser on Thursday.. I am so out of practice at drawing in public, and get nervous and jittery in case people notice and come over to look, which one little stylist did do, and it was perfectly OK - she also draws, and was so interested and said it was "cool", so what is there to get twitchy about? It's a good place to draw people - lots of mirrors so you can observe fairly surreptitiously, people sit stillish, and the stylists wear such funky clothes, shoes and hairdo's. Next time I'll try not to be so chicken. I added the colour washes later at home - don't know if I'll ever take the full sketching kit to the mall!

Leaving home again

Our firstborn 'little' daughter left for Dubai yesterday, to start a new, amazingly grown-up sounding job as supervisor in a couture design studio. It's strange how when they're at home for any length of time, at the great age of 26/7, you start muttering about how they should really be independent and leading their own lives... and when they DO, all you can think of is this small, delicate, innocent child that (surely) badly needs your protection, and advice, and constant presence to show them the ropes. BUT, I really know it will be good, and she will be a better more rounded person for it, and she's way, way braver than I ever was... Bon Voyage, little Pie!!!