Little ones

Here's what has been keeping me busy the last few weeks. They are all A5 size. I've quite enjoyed working on this small format, it's forced me to simplify images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spencer Street Studio Cart Horse Exhibition

The exhibition I mentioned in my previous post is coming together. The feature piece is this awesome one above. Painted collectively by giving a number of different painters individual squares of abstract looking patterns and textures, all now put together to form this big proud cart horse. Here's more about it.

Also on show and for sale will be lots of little blocks and some canvases by various painters in the studio. Some of mine will be up too. Will post a preview tomorrow.

painting like crazy

This last week my focus shifted from sketching and blogging when I realised I had three weeks to get stuff ready for the charity art sale our studio is holding. Here's how I spent my Saturday.

Travel Album: Art museums

When I visit any city in the northern part of the world I usually head straight to the art museums. There's always an aha moment with something. Works that I've overlooked in books suddenly leap off the wall and come alive.  In Barcelona and Paris I took in a lot of Picasso, but my real wow experience was at the Fundació Joan Miró. His work suddenly all made complete sense, and the building itself enhances it. It was the most spiritual experience I had on the trip - despite all the cathedrals I visited.

Got to be in the mood

It doesn't happen often, but every now and then I see a plant I feel inspired to draw. After admiring this amaryllis slowly opening over a few days, I just had to grab my pencil. And, I felt it had to have colour too! To prove how rarely I feel in the mood to draw flowers, I dug around in my sketch books. The last time was a good number of years ago with this orchid.

Favourite pencil found

A while ago I was moaning that I'd lost my favourite pencil. I really had lost all hope of it turning up somewhere. But I shouldn't have been so pessimistic. Yesterday, I found it in one of those dreaded bowls that always mysteriously collect paper clips, coins, elastic bands and... my pencil!

 I like it because it is nice and thick, easy to hold, and the tip wears down more slowly than other pencils. Those of you who went to a white school in the bad old apartheid days may recognise it, every art classroom had masses of them. The days of government-issue school art supplies are over, so I don't have much hope of replacing it when it's finally reduced to a milimetre-long stub. Though I am sure there are boxes of them lurking in the back of some dusty artroom cupboard somewhere out there - not enough incentive to get me back to school though!

Three Favourites

I have been asked to bring my three favourite paintings that I've done this year to class tomorrow. This got me thinking. because I wasn't quite sure what to choose.  Here is my final choice.

Basically I like the way they turned out. 

Those of you who have been following my blog from the start, may recognise these from sketches I've posted. I'll leave you to go back and find them if you want to.

 

Travel Album: Cathedrals

The other day I finally got our photos developed from a trip we took to France and Spain in 2005. Shocking - clearly I'm not a scrap-booker at heart. Anyway, while going through the pics I started thinking about how I photograph places, things, experiences compared to how I sketch them. I'm doing a similar thing with each in that I'm working directly from reality and attempting to capture it in some way. So, a new project for me is to do some visual comparisons, just to see.  Here's my first attempt. (By the way, some of the photos are my husband's as we share a camera, but it's impossible to tell who took what. We both always claim to have taken the best pics.)

Day 30 My personal record

 I hate hate those punny magazine headlines, but I couldn't resist this corny one. Yes, I have made it: 30 days of drawing. A record for me. I'm not in the mood to reflect on lessons learnt blah-blah. So instead I'll talk about other records.

Something else I like looking for at markets and second hand shops are records - but I have to be in the right mood. My record buying tends to be along the lines of what I would have bought if I'd had more pocket money when I was 15.  As a result, I don't often listen to them, but I do like the way they look on the shelf in the lounge. Every now and then I declare it a vinyl Sunday and subject the family to the likes of  U2, Pink Floyd and Alphaville. This last Sunday was one of those, kicked off by Dirty Dancing (my original copy that I did manage to buy when I was 15) in memory of dearly departed Patrick Swayze.

After all this hectic sketching and posting, I think I will take a break for a few days - that's if I manage to, it's all become rather addictive.

Day 29 After- supper sketch

And the supper was not made my me!  Fortunately it hardly ever is thanks to having a fab inspired cook for a husband (he actually finds it a relaxing thing to do after a long hard day at work - very wierd). I've found doing a sketch a day hard, but way way easier than trying to cook a meal a day. Maybe my next project should be to draw a meal a day - nah.

Day 28 Chinaholics Anonymous

I am a fleamarket junkie and I have a generous grandmother, so I've ended up with a lot of tea sets and other wonderful china. I could host a tea party to make the WA ladies proud and even so I just can't stop at a good bargain. For many years the main target of my bargain hunting has been Susie Cooper. And then a a closing down sale in a small south coast town and my mother's even sharper nose for a bargain now has us tripping over the stuff. So, I've had to make room for another teaset to sit unused but much admired in my sort-of display cupboard. Will I give it up? Never ever.

Day 27 Bit of sunshine

I was preparing myself for yet another cold rainy day to finish off my long weekend, but it turned out to be sort of decent in patches. So, I was rescued from my urban sketcher's cabin fever with a trip to the nearby park this afternoon. The park's next to the bridge I love-hate, and I've been wanting to it draw for ages.


What I hate about this bridge is that it cuts our side of Obs in half. The houses on each side just peak over the top of it. Plus, it's dark and smelly and ugly. What I love (hmm love it too strong a word by anyway) about it is well, let's be practical, traffic would be worse than it already is without it. But that's not it really, it's the strong lines and shadows enhanced by the fact that it's too big for the space it occupies.


And then, I managed to get in a quick urban classic, of roof-tops, chimneys and TV-aerials before being called to balance out the see-saw. I am realising with all this Victorian architecture, inside and out, that I need to simplify it and eliminate the detail in order to achieve the effect I want - the patterns and shapes and how they relate to each other.

Day 26 enough already

Enough of winter, enough of being stuck indoors and enough of this stupid sketch a day thing. I'm really sick of drawing the inside of my house. I'm bored, and I've lost my favourite pencil.

Day 25 Housekeeping tips for busy sketchers

The ultimate form of procrastination has to be drawing the mess rather than cleaning it up. I was really hoping some else would get to those dishes while I looked seriously busy with my sketch pad.


Same goes for sorting out those shelves and clearing the stuff that's been sitting on the top of the fridge for months (years?).


Another way of dealing with a messy house is to draw out the mess. This page in my sketch pad conveniently ended before I was forced to draw all the stuff not yet picked up off the carpet. Pity that life does not always reflect art.

Day 21 Books

I dashed off this one just now, and so I thought let me just post it quickly.
I thought books would be easy and maybe a bit boring, but I enjoyed the subject matter and found it more challenging than I thought. I'm definitely going to do more.

Day 20 Out and about again

Yesterday I had plenty of opportunity to sit down in front of something interesting with my sketch pad. Here's one of good old Crown Street.

And then, while working on this one, I noticed that this electricity pole / street lamp has aspirations of being a Russian cathedral. It's the only one in the street that has a fancy dome on top of it. So, I decided to draw it to officially recognise it's subtle individuality in the world of street lamps.


Later, we went for a walk on Sunset Beach. The afternoon light formed nice strong geometric shadows of the buildings the city centre across the bay.



I couldn't resist capturing the strong hulking shapes of the ships on the horizon.

day 19 catch up

Day 18 didn't happen either. But, I did two today. One I like, one I don't.

Day 17 Didn't happen

I was so relaxed yesterday, in that just finished deadline mode. It was only at 10pm after watching 4 episodes in a row of Weeds (latest addiction), that I realised I hadn't done my daily sketch. Oh well, I'm relaxed enough to not stress about it. Will do two today or tomorrow to make up for it.
Have a good weekend.

Days 14 - 16

When I made this spur of the moment announcement to draw everyday in September, I forgot that I had a revolting horrible work deadline right in the middle of it. So, all I've managed to do the last few days is the bare minimum to stick to my challenge. But hoorah, free at last. So hopefully I'll have more time for my neglected sketch pad and pencil.

Days 12 and 13 Still stuck indoors

Yesterday any ideas of enjoying the weather and going outdoors were thwarted by a beeeeg deadline at work, which had me slaving at the office on a sunny Saturday. And then, just my luck, today I was rained in. I did say that I wanted to do more interiors though, so here's my chance.

Days 10 and 11

Day 10: Rooms in my house. I like the patterns made by walls and spaces in houses. This sketch doesn't quite show what I mean so well. I must do some more.


Day 11: I always enjoy the view behind our house early on a sunny morning, with these dark interesting shapes silhouetted against the just light sky.

Days 5 - 9 Extremely un-extreme sketching

I was chuffed to get a stern email from a certain neighbour asking what happened to days 5,6,7,8,9. Now I know that at least one person actually reads this thing (just looking at the pictures is also OK). I've been sick. Being stuck indoors and a cold rainy weekend is not good for an urban scribbler. But, part of this challenge was to force myself to draw something other than buildings and street lamps...

Day 5: Fortunately I had a parking garage and house I could draw just sitting in the lounge.


Then I turned to my all time back-up subject matter.


Day 6: Was forced outdoors by Isabel.

Day 7: Isabel stood in for me. She's taking the sketch a day challenge very seriously. This is of a snail and a penguin (oh our daughter is an artistic genius).


Day 8: Starting to get desparate, but shoes are kind of interesting.


Day 9: Comfort food - Marmite on hot buttered toast. I am a devoted fan. I once travelled for 3 hours, half way across Taiwan, by scooter, train and then taxi to get to a shop I had heard sold Marmite. It cost R50 and I bought some.