Jacaranda Time Again...

I'm glad I got at least one little sketch of them in, as over the weekend, after a week of scorching heat, we had tumultuous storms of wind, rain and hail that stripped many of the blossoms off their stalks. Hopefully more will bud, I haven't had my fill yet of the purple glory time!

 ...and the end of Inktober. I didn't much like following the prompts, but sometimes they led to revelations and discoveries - below are some of the drawings I did enjoy: 

Thinking of/feeling the word to form the shape of the action, like Throw, top left - I think this was a stick I dipped in coffee and swirled around, then dropped ink into the wet marks and finished off with some descriptive lines. The next one, Coral, almost made itself - the natural movement of ink marks on a wet or damp surface formed coral-like textures - and a fun, quick Chef, after a carefully illustrated one was rejected.

The bottom three were more personal - Float - from a photo of my daughter, though it doesn't look like her - water and its distortions are always interesting, as are Shoes, especially well-used battered old takkies - and Hide - my little 3 year old granddaughter's idea of how to do it...(smiley face with hearts emoticon here)

I'm trying to figure out what it is I really love to do, as time runs away at an ever faster rate and I don't want to waste any doing stuff I don't love any more, so Inktober was good for that at least. Some days were diamonds, and some days were stones! 

A Deep Purple Breather

I'm still up to my ears in my big illustration job and will be for at least the next three weeks - hundreds of little scenarios showing public health problems and how to deal with them, involving many confusing briefs, sketches, instructions and changes to all of the above... I'm through the pencil rough stage and busy with line drawings, next is colouring them all up in Photopaint....ooh my burning neck!

But I have got out now and then for a breath of air and some happy sloshing around with paint. It's jacaranda season (almost over already) so I just had to join sketcher friends in one of the purple shrouded avenues that grid the city and try once again to capture their glow. This one was actually sold after its appearance on our Joburg Sketchers page (thank you Peggy, if you read this!) I'll tell you soon about another lovely painting weekend, but it'll need a bit of work to show and tell... in the meantime, back to the drawing board.

11,12, Dig and Delve

We've had agonisingly slow internet connections for a while, interspersed with power cuts so a big batch of Every Day in May sketches in one post... I feel I'm doing this challenge a bit like my great-nephew's quick way to count to a hundred..."one, two, miss a few, ninety-nine, a hundred". Although I've only missed one, Day 13's The last thing you bought, I've combined a couple - 11 and 12 Hat and Steps - the ones outside my studio where I'm ever-so-slowly turning bare earth into a little garden with railway sleeper steps, paving stones, a birdbath and groundcover - and 15 and 16 Ingredients for a favourite recipe (chocolate cake - forgot the sugar!) and Something to measure with.

The others are 14. Something you use every day - my glasses, every hour of every day, when I'm not searching for them;
15. Something you could Throw Away - my bags and boxes full of jacaranda pods - They've been turned into Christmas wreaths and angels, painted in oils, watercolour and inks and still every year our two trees rain down another batch and I can't resist picking them up and stashing them, they are so pretty!


18. Lipstick - a very red one that I never wear - it just looks ridiculous on me, like a reverse No Entry sign; and 19. a Cupcake - I resisted going out to buy one or spending a morning baking because... you know why, so used a photo I took at a friend's wedding a few weeks ago.

Like others, I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep this up - other projects are calling and a possibility of exhibiting some work if I can finish it...

Spring in Killarney Park

Joburg Sketchers were invited (yay!) to come and sketch at Killarney's pop-up activation event to renew community interest in their local park. I didn't even know there was a Killarney Park though I've driven around there quite often, so was curious to see. An avenue of jacaranda trees has been gated off from the surrounding suburb which consists mostly of loads of large, old blocks of flats - I should think mostly of the 1950's to 60's era - on the day they were unveiling a heritage plaque at an Art Deco building, though I didn't find that. 

In a month or so those bare branches and pathway are going to be draped and drenched in purple as jacaranda season begins.

 I didn't know where to begin, but eventually decided on the jauntily blowing bunting flags that receded into the background. The people I added are of rather strange proportions, but it gives an impression of the vibe of the day.

This little group of old ladies with various walking aids at their sides seemed very happy to sit there all day in the sun, watching the world (or at least the locals) go by. It's probably a long time since they've been able to do this without worrying about safety - always a concern if there aren't many people around.

The face painter was extraordinary, whizzing through the queues of children with sponges and brushes, turning them within seconds into kitties or butterflies, spidermen or tigers. As usual, so much to sketch - a few more from the other sketchers here on our Facebook page if you're interested.

A Heritage House - and portraits galore!

On a hot Saturday four of us went sketching at two early Johannesburg heritage homes in Parktown - built in 1903 and 1904 (Joburg is not very old is it?) One houses the National Children's Theatre and this one that I drew, theatre workshops for children; so every now and then bands of kids poured in and out of the building, whom I sketched as fast as I could. Those who know more about architecture than I do, thought the design and proportions were a bit weird - so I'll blame the wonkiness on that - wouldn't be my sketch would it!?

The Night of a 1000 Drawings was crazy - my friends Anni and John came with me to sketch portraits. After a slow start while we dithered about where and how to start, at last a little girl, Alexia, came up and asked for a portrait - and was unfazed when all three of us focused on her! Then another quiet patch until I approached a young woman and got her to sit for us - then suddenly there were queues forming and people clamouring, we got two more chairs and each of us had to sketch to beat the band  - literally as the night wore on, the party hotted up and the music got louder! I grabbed a few blurry photos (I'm good at those!) but didn't have time to get a record of all of them. We must have done at least 9 or 10 sketch portraits each before, with burning eyes and cramping fingers, we called it
a night - to remember! 

About 3000 drawings were hung up around the huge Sci-Bono Centre on washing lines. People had to buy envelopes with stickers for R100 each, wait for the bell to go and then place their stickers on the drawings they wanted. I found these photos on the 1000 Drawings Facebook page of my umbrella ladies with a couple of buyers with stickers at the ready...steady...sold! 

I recognise the girls in the middle photo on the left as two that I sketched - next time I'll take an 'official' photographer with us or a portable scanner - do you get such a thing?

Prints for sale, and back at the Dam

Urban Sketchers has a new online store where you can buy prints of sketches from around the world, including these two of mine. All the art in the store raises funds in support of the USk blog and the upcoming symposium in Barcelona - which I was planning and looking forward to going to until my daughter announced her wedding date for a week later. Ah well, exchanging one happy event for another, not a bad prospect!
I chose these sketches as typical scenes in Johannesburg, very familiar to me. The jacaranda sketch I described in this blog post last November. The top one I did a couple of years ago, at Emmarentia Dam near my home. These basket ladies sit outside the entrance to the 'Dog Park' where we often go walking. If business is quiet they pick up their wares and walk around trying to find customers, keeping an eye out for security guards, as trading in the park is illegal. I sketched these three coming towards me from a distance - the furthest figure in my sketch actually being the woman in front, by the time they were up close I was scribbling down the one bringing up the rear.

On our last Joburg Sketchers sketch date we also went to 'the dam', the venue for our very first meeting back in August 2010 - still only four of us since a few of our regular sketchers have departed Jhb for more picturesque surroundings. But we make do with what we have, so once again applied ourselves to the geese, the pecked-bare red earth, the trees and the people...

Too much purple?

 You might be getting sick of these trees by now, but on Saturday we went up a high hill - to where the University of Johannesburg's (UJ) soccer fields are - and the jacarandas were just everywhere. I'm always puzzling as to how to paint them, this time I used a small sea sponge to try and capture their light, airy quality.

It seems a waste to designate these sweeping views of the city and suburbs to playing fields, but I guess if there were hotels and private homes up there, it would be a lot harder to access them. As it was we had to get permission from the university - luckily one of our regular sketchers is a professor there, so no problem.

We sat just below one of Joburg's two iconic towers, the Sentech (previously Brixton) Tower, and looked out towards the other one, the Hillbrow Tower, in the middle of about the densest, diciest area of town. Brixton Tower (left) used to have a restaurant at the base, and a viewing deck, and Hillbrow had a revolving restaurant at the top, but both were closed down in the turbulent Eighties, in case they became a target for guerilla attacks. Those were the days when we were searched or scanned going into any public space or shopping centre, afraid of our own shadows and sure that calamity and civil war were around the corner. Hard to remember that, sitting up there in peaceful shade, students who would never have been allowed the opportunity to study here in those days, cheerily greeting us as they walked past.

A footnote: I was asked about the colours I used to get the purple - I use Winsor & Newton almost exclusively as it's easily available here - and it is mainly Winsor Violet in different concentrations, lifted and dabbed with the sponge to lighten it, with touches of Permanent Rose here and there.  I added Viridian Green to the W.Violet in the shadowy bits, the two combined make lovely greys - and touches of Smalt, or Du Pont's Blue, which was a free trial tube I got some years ago. I love the way it granulates on the paper, I think if I did a big painting of jacarandas I would use it with Permanent Rose to help create the texture of the massed flowers - hope it's still available! Here is a strip of these colours:

That Jacaranda Time again

This seems to come around faster and faster every year - jacaranda blossom time. They aren't as spectacular as usual in Johannesburg, perhaps because we've had early rains and I think the flowers need a little stress to perform really well - perhaps like all of us. I was not too stressed, it was a lovely sunny morning and I met three sketcher friends in a tranquil side street in Westcliff where we spent a relaxed couple of hours. I did exaggerate the purple, it was there, but sparsely scattered - hard to paint without getting finicky. I started with the bottom one in my watercolour Moleskine with rather a fat brush - a Van Gogh goats hair one that I 've loved for years but which has now lost its point and is losing its hair. 
I switched to some long neglected Caran d'Ache Neocolor II watersoluble crayons which I've never mastered (but haven't spent much time trying). With only 12 basic colours, the middle one is startlingly vivid where I put in street signs, bougainvillea, some yellow and orange  flowers and a bit of a jacaranda - I reined myself in a bit on the last top one of Alan and Marlene sitting picturesquely under the trees.
Previous posts on jacarandas are here, here, here and here if you're interested.

Jacaranda Joburg

Purple, purple everywhere right now - the jacarandas breathtakingly taking over the city - above our heads, below our feet as the fallen blossoms cover the streets, and wherever you turn. Trying to photograph and paint them, it seems impossible to really portray their glowing abundance of colour. On the left I tried splashing and dropping it on, emulating the flowers that drop constantly onto my page, and above, rolling the brush loaded with the staining dioxazine violet around the page to build darker tones but still trying to keep them light and luminous.

We're having a heat wave, and these scenes of women walking with umbrellas and pushing the prams of the babies they take care of are everywhere up and down the shady avenues - pure summer in Johannesburg!



Roaming around Rosebank

Wow, this blog has hit 300 followers and I can't see any of them on this page or in my dashboard - I still haven't figured out why - but thank you! Sorry for another long break, I've been doing a bit of work, and dithering around with all sorts of projects, getting out to sketch now and then...

 Cranks restaurant in Rosebank, from under a lovely jacaranda tree that I squeezed onto the edges. The jacarandas are out all over Joburg now, not as prolifically flowering as usual, but still magnificent.

Then I had lunch in another sidewalk café, sketching people in the restaurant opposite

 A few days later - a booksale in a Rosebank courtyard - my friend Anni, and I tried sketching from another viewpoint and were chased away by a security guard, so we asked the book sales people if we could sit close to them - next to another security guard - if we promised not to raid the till, and escaped the 'loiterer police' long enough to get down some browsing figures

After which we were ready for a cup of tea- and we drew the Friday after-work crowd gathering around us in peace

And an attempt to sketch people walking briskly past - still loving the waterbrush filled with Ecoline for this!

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.

Winter garden

Hello there! I'm back in the land of watercolours, trees, walks in the park... I think there are more work projects on the way, but for now... wheee! I must say discipline and deadlines do me good every now and then and I'm glad my 'work' is almost as much fun as my 'play'. Just so much of it at a time!
But this morning I got up, free as a bird, and put on my walking shoes and my new pedometer and went on my usual route around the dam - 5613 steps including an extra bit to the supermarket to buy some yoghurt to put on my breakfast. Only 220 calories burnt - a bit downcasting, but I'm not sure if I've set my new toy properly. I'll have to figure out a way that the walk at least cancels out the breakfast. I didn't stop and sketch, it was bracing to say the least, but when I got home I had a hot shower and sat in the sun in the garden to sketch the branches of our big jacaranda. As purple as the flowers are in early summer (see sketches here and here and oil paintings here) the foliage goes golden in winter before it all falls off - W&N Quinacridone Gold and Green Gold are the perfect match.

I very quickly sketched my neighbour's jacaranda to get a bit of distance on the subject - on the original Emmarentia farm rows of them were planted, along with avocado trees which you can still see dotted around. Tragically, lots of recent immigrés to the suburb are chopping down every big old tree on their new properties and building vast palaces and concreting what's left - what kind of mindset is that? Joburg, as I've mentioned before, has the biggest manmade Urban Forest in the world, but I don't know for how much longer at this rate!

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!

Pod angels II

I fixed the camera and got some slightly better shots - you really need to see them in 3D!

Pod Angels

One last project with the jacarandas before I really move on to something else! I've had a bag full of pods sitting in my studio for a couple of years, and an idea of making Christmas angels from them for a lot more years, so I thought this would be a good time to put thought into action, and have these little jac-angels to go with the series of paintings at the A&C Fair.


The flowers are about all that's left of the fantastic spring display, a few scattered around the lawn and streets.
The pods are in wonderfully convoluted shapes that just make me think of wings and celestial garments - these I've sketched here are not as shapely as some, so weren't chosen to be angels (like not being picked for the Nativity play - aww!). There were only enough good pods to make 9 angels - many more than that I'll have to get a production team - they are pretty fiddly! I had such trouble trying to photograph them with my new camera - I've now got it stuck on a setting that turns them all greenish grey, though the images are sharp, unlike these that are a bit out of focus. I'll have to go find the book and read it - darn!

Jacaranda Series

This concludes - for this year anyway - the jacaranda series of 4 little (25 x 25cm) oil paintings, that will be going onto the Arts & Crafts Fair at the end of this month, and with the weather we're having, had better be the last of new oil paintings for then - they will just never get dry in time! The flowers are falling like rain, too, and new green leaves sprouting. Soon the pods will fall, and then the tiny stalks, then the leaves and then the long stalks... it never ends with jacarandas - as we know too well, because some clever built our house's swimming pool right underneath one - a constant slog to keep it clean!

This is the opposite side of the koppie from which I painted the view of little Melville houses - this looks over the suburb of Emmarentia. Someone had considerately blasted a hole in the rock to begin work on their driveway, so that I could get a glimpse of the North-facing side - these houses have a wonderful view, which on a clear day must go all the way to the Magaliesburg.
Coming in on a wing and a prayer,

Look below there's our field over there.

Though there's one motor gone

We will still carry on,

Coming in on a wing and a prayer.