The Sheds

After a long dry spell from any drawing or painting while admin and emails and a short trip to the Cape occupied my time, I finally got out for a bit of sketching time. First over lunch with my husband at a pub called the Jolly Roger, where I sketched a scene across the street, until a flamboyant woman and her young date/friend/son? sat down at a nearby table. I couldn't resist furtively getting her down on paper, hoping very much that she wouldn't spot me and ask to see the results - not sure if she would have appreciated them...
Then I made a last minute sketch date for our group to go to a new market at some renovated old mining warehouses on the outskirts of the city called The Sheds@1 Fox on Saturday. Only four of us turned up with such late notice, but with interesting industrial spaces, delicious food and drinks stalls spread around, nice music and a relaxed vibe, we'll have to go back and explore it some more. The Happy Me in the bottom sketch is not, incidentally, referring to the wine in the foreground (though it could!) - it's a 'bubble tea, gourmet coffee, smoothies and mixology' shop in the background, which I did indulge in at that time of day!

SketchCrawl #44 at Hillfox

For the 44th World Wide SketchCrawl I wracked my brains to think of a warm place for our Joburg Sketchers to go and crawl around. Though our winter skies are generally clear blue and cloudless, dry iciness creeps and whistles into every corner. After a small poll, we decided to go to the Hillfox Value Centre, a rather ugly and sprawling shopping complex, but which houses a huge Food Lover's Market and the B&B markets.

 After starting with coffee at the F.L.M. to warm up and to welcome a couple of newcomers, we moved over to the B&B which was looking a little empty and forlorn of crowds - cleverer people had stayed at home under a duvet or near a fireplace. At least we had good views of the stalls that we chose to sketch, without too many bodies blocking our way. A couple of our group were told they weren't allowed to sketch by officious officials, I suppose they had little else to do without customers to harass.

  I went for the more colourful options I could spot in the gloom - first the hookah stand and then onto Clive, with his incredible array of beaded creatures and plants. I only fitted about half of his wares into my sketch, and those (surely frozen) fingers just kept working away at more.

  This warehouse-like basement was no warmer than a Joburg back street in the shade so we headed back to F.L.M. for lunch, where once again I forgot to do the photos of sketchers and their morning's work, you can see them here on our Facebook page. After lunch some of us hung around the bakery section, a place that always calls to me, sketching the wares a better option than eating them, if only I'd remember that. I then crawled, shivering, back to my car which, having been standing for a few hours in the sun was deliciously warm so I did a quick last sketch - cars, shopper, car guard -  before heading home.

Blubird of Happiness

Refiloe behind her veggie stall

View from our café table

Honey and pots for sale

Pastel de Nata!

 The Joburg Sketchers went to the Blubird Wholefood Market on Sunday morning - invited by the organiser, it was nice to feel so welcome! Interesting to note the different reactions to our presence in this upmarket shopping centre after the lively feedback we had in the city a few weeks ago... some surreptitious peeks over my shoulder, sideways glances and generally non-committal. One lady came over for a friendly chat before asking, "you are going to vote for the D.A. aren't you?" so I think she had an ulterior motive!
We were joined by four new sketchers - with one originally from Lisbon, and Pasteis de Nata on sale at a bakery stall, it was lovely to reminisce on the Lisbon urban sketching Symposium of three years ago. Registration has opened for the 2014 Symposium in Paraty, Brazil and I'm sad not to be rushing to put my name down - just too far away and too much expense for a few days of sketching indulgence, tempting as it is!

Jozi Food Market

The Jozi Food Market is held every Saturday at Pirates sports club near my home. It was very quiet this last week when our sketching group visited, as was Johannesburg with everyone still returning from their holidays away - not many customers for the lovely fresh produce. But when I woke up early this morning I heard the familiar background drone of traffic which has been missing for the last three or four weeks - everyone getting back to work and in a day or two, school.