Peepo!

I haven't slipped off the edge of the world - just emerging from a too time intensive fund-raising project in between a stack of deadlines for something exciting that I don't think I'm supposed to mention yet. Drawing, paints, brushes, paper, canvas, seem like a dim, distant happy memory as do gentle days of blogging, visiting and commenting.

I thought I'd do a Christmas stall at my church's Arts & Crafts Day, after finding that paintings weren't really a viable seller with that particular marketplace, but boy, I wasn't prepared for the commitment of time, money and energy that filling a little table with angels and mangers, gingerbread men and Christmas stockings, candles and biscuits would entail. About half way through I was telling myself firmly - never again! I have to figure out a better way of raising funds creatively, or else just hand over the cheque that would go into raw materials and save on the weeks of slog - it would have meant more money for them!

Here are some of the angels and nativity scenes made from jacaranda pods - they all sold out and though the heads with hair and headresses were fiddly, quite fun to make, and could be worthwhile in an organised production line. They emerge with their own little characters and caused such delight that I got over my mutters about how long they took and happily sent them off to their new homes.

Back to the Stations

You may remember - long, long ago - before I embarked on the workshop posts, I did one on how to Make your own Scraperboard, which I had happened upon as a way to make the Stations of the Cross for Good Friday. It's not entirely appropriate now as we celebrate the happy, joyous side of Easter - but I've been scraping away at my prepared boards in between other things, using my son as a model (cause for contemplation) for some of the figure studies and summoning other images, scratch by scratch, out of the blackness. I haven't had a chance to sit down and scan, photograph and post all the images until now. For those who are interested in seeing all the Stations, they are over here at the brand new St Peter's blog.

The torso and the disembodied hands on the big wooden cross that is a permanent fixture of the church garden worked well - unobtrusive but drawing a closer look.

For anyone who might want to try this technique, a few things I've discovered...

• Do put two coats of white paint on the undercoat and two layers of wax polish, it doesn't give a bright white line through the black ink with just one.
• Don't prepare your board too far in advance - if the Indian ink gets too dry and brittle, it chips off rather than scrapes cleanly.
• On paper, this seems to be quite a stable medium, but on board it is very fragile! A splash of water or a brush past of a sleeve lifts the ink right off the wax surface so when finished...
• Seal the finished art with a spray varnish - I used Grumbacher gloss acrylic painting varnish - not a paint-on varnish or medium, the ink will wipe off like water from a duck's back!
• A craft knife with a snap-off blade is great for producing a wide variety of lines from broad
  sweeps with the flat edge to the finest thin line - I found I didn't need anything else.

The choir

Over a week since I've been here - I'm still nose to the grindstone and it feels like I've blended permanently into my computer chair, but on Sunday I went to church to listen to the Holy Cross Anglican choir of Soweto who came to sing for us. Warm, spine-tingling, deeply holy - hard to describe the feelings that this harmonious group engenders, from sorrowful to soaring joy. I sketched as I listened, but of course only one person at a time, so if I drew one person dancing and swaying, they were all dancing and swaying, or clapping or happy or sombre. Services in Soweto apparently go on for hours, unlike in the Northern suburbs, where everyone is impatient to get to their golf, or lunch, or Wimbledon on TV - so the choir had just warmed up, said Thandi the leader, when they had to wind it up for us - but a wonderful start to the week, in which there are yet more illustrations to be drawn... until next time!

Cheerio, chooks

Well the Fair is finally over - a sigh of relief and a slight feeling of emptiness as the pressure of the last weeks is lifted. My Chicken series sold, and two of the Pavement women scenes, and one Jacaranda, with possibly two more after a night or two of sleeping on the thought, so I had a good day. Very little else was sold, sadly, as there was some excellent art on show, at I think reasonable prices. As I've said before, I think a church arts fair won't generally attract big art buyers - unless word gets around and next time (if there is one), they'll come flocking in. I think the familiarity of these scenes, plus their small size and relative prices, worked quite well at this particular show. My favourite bit about it all was

meeting and chatting to some of the other artists - somehow

or other I haven't had that opportunity at other exhibitions - I suppose because I've never 'baby-sat' my work before all through the showing. Some interesting information and contacts were swopped and I'm quite excited to be not quite as on my own in this part of the world as I have been for a long time - many of my past partners-in-art have left Johannesburg for greener pastures over the years - it's high time I found some new ones!

Jacaranda Time

A purple flush is creeping over Johannesburg... the jacarandas are coming into bloom and our notorious city is transformed into a thing of beauty and a joy for October into November... Since the demise of my camera (only yesterday - it feels like a week!) I've been toting my bag full of sketching tricks around, and bravely parking around the streets to draw. This nervous one below was the first - on my way to fetch my son from school in Northcliff, a gorgeous hilly foresty old suburb full of resplendently lush gardens. None of which you can tell from this sketch
The Pilot fineliner I used bled far too much into the watercolours, and the distant view melded into the foreground
This morning I parked on a Melville street and drew the (top) view towards the city, with water-soluble pencil, which worked better - then stopped in at our prettiest little church to spend a quiet hour in the garden - well, I would have to look up more superlatives - it is just bursting with colour, light, life and abundance. It was planted and nurtured by my friend, our now-retired pastor's wife, Wendy, and assistant gardener and verger, Joshua - a haven of peace and beauty to all who enter or walk past. This is just a little bit - I'll have to go back to do more.

For Zimbabwe

Whew! It's been a while since I've been here - have embarked on a large supposedly 'group' project that the group is not co-operating with very well, but seeing as I started it, I guess it's up to me to push through... I won't go into details, but it's why I haven't been doing much else, sketching, painting or blogging. My emotions have also been dragged through the mill, as I'm sure many others have, with the Zimbabwe elections - looked for a while as though an amazing peaceful democratic transition was going to happen, but noo-o-o such thing - should have known better. Anyway, I am just posting this prayer for Africa - for Zimbabwe - written by Bishop Trevor Huddleston during the apartheid years, and still very needed here and now. It's not very legible in this reflective image - I made it with glue, tin foil, enamel paints, string and some other stuff on an old hymn-board - so it goes...

God Bless Africa

Guard her children

Guide her leaders

And give her peace

Happy Easter!

Papercut

Here is the wedding banner I was working on in the blog below - the wedding was wonderful, moving, and had many of us there determinedly holding back wild joyous sobs, as it was the 'happy second beginning' after long terribly rough times for both the bride and the groom. And the sun shone! - the only day it has for weeks before and ever since. What a cool wet summer we're having... those weaver birds were mistaken when building their nests so low (see previous post).
Anyway, after all that cutting, I haven't started my Christmas shopping - and it's our eldest's 27th (gulp) birthday tomorrow, and the house has spiralled down into chaos, so if I don't post for a while and anyone wanders into this blog, I wish you a very happy Christmas, Chanukkah or whatever it is you're celebrating - and a renewal of all your creative energy for the New Year!

Adorning the church

As December has suddenly lurched into reality, I've changed direction and focus once again to thinking about the 'adornment' of our church for Christmas. A friend is getting married there too in two weeks time, so I'm adding to the existing papercut hangings (which she and some other friendly hands helped me to cut some years ago) to make a wedding-theme banner to cover the bare back of the piano. The sketch above is work-in-progress - I am about to start the neck and shoulder straining task of cutting this morning. The motifs are basically of the Tree of Life, with God's hand reaching down as the roots, to the crossed hands of the man and woman within a circle/ring. On either side of the tree is a river, referring to Ephesians 5: 25- 33 about marriage, and I think I will add a wineflask or jug between the water and the vines as a reference to the wedding feast where Jesus turned the water into wine... never quite sure if my creative efforts are theologically sound, but so far noone has raised any objections!
I was inspired by the amazing work of Nancy Chinn, and her book 'Spaces for Spirit' to take the decoration of our little church beyond the usual candles and poinsettia - albeit on a much smaller scale. It is quite a commitment, and I do find it a little daunting to come up with new ideas for all the repeated seasons and festivals - pressures of The Artist in the congregation...

Old Friends

Oops - I didn't get this sketch into the last post as intended...