Studio Window

Oh no, they're changing Blogger - have to learn more new stuff!... it looks like I can't change the size of the images any more, unless there's something I've missed..? (I reverted to the old style to make these bigger this time.)

Anyway, with days blending into each other, I'd forgotten to do the weekly post I'd promised myself I would. This little series below started with a doodly sort of continuous line drawing of my studio windowsill . I then added monochromatic tones, which scattered the image into little pieces - so I printed out a copy of the original line drawing (luckily photographed it first - a good way to try out different approaches) and tried to mass the tones into bigger areas. Still a bit busy, but it's a very busy window! And then added white highlights with a Pentel paint pen. The light was changing constantly as I painted, so these do sort of reflect the passage of time in a day, but I'd love to get simpler, stronger designs in my work.

One Week 100 People 2020

Marc Taro Holmes and Liz Steel's #Oneweek100people project came around much faster than I was expecting - I'm sure it's not a year since the last one!? But I always enjoy this challenge, in spite of a great feeling of laziness and denial beforehand. Once out, I love the people watching, trying to capture the variety of shapes, styles and characters, and usually notice an improvement during the week. I started almost by accident last Sunday when I had been standing in a long, long grocery queue for a good 10 minutes before I realised it was a great sketching opportunity. Of course as soon as I started doing that, the queue started moving along really fast.

It was a real effort to get out of the house and seek people the next day. First I sat at my steering wheel and sketched people moving around in car parks - mostly going far too quickly for proper observation. 

I've been asked how I sketch moving people so fast, and of course they're very often out of sight before I finish. I can draw basic figures, in about any position, from memory - after many hours of figuring it out, and staring without always trying to sketch (if the left foot is forward, which arm is swinging to the front?...if I've drawn that leg there, how would the other leg make sense, at what angle/where is the weight? etc.etc.) and practicing, and trial and error. Observing the live subjects provides details like body shapes and postures, hair and clothes styles, defining features, and I'm often craning my neck to see my subject's particular standout shoes or headwear, or whatever captured my attention in the first place as they disappear into the crowd or distance. 

I then decided to find more stationary subjects, and found a table at a café with a good view of the other customers. People on phones are pretty much oblivious to anyone staring at them, I find, but had to peer surreptitiously at others through sunglasses. 

It's ironic that the week I ventured out of a long semi-hibernation is the week Covid-19 arrived in this country. I certainly noticed very thorough and regular cleaning of surfaces by restaurant staff at the two I visited, but were still bustling with customers. I'm sure that will drop off drastically this week after the president's announcement of a state of disaster last night, and infection numbers double every other day. Please take care and stay safe everyone.

Another outside table at the Zone in Rosebank, some people staying put for a few moments on what is apparently Smoker's Bench right in front of me - others approaching from or departing into the distance, giving me a little time to catch some details.

And my last day, at Emmarentia Dam's dog park, where people seemed to arrive in batches. I had to include some of the dogs, so much fun to watch (and yes, I did get dam water shook all over me and my sketchbook!) but I ended up with some strangely rendered specimens! I counted 95 attempts at people - the most I've got to doing this challenge over the years, only five escaped!

Monday Madness

I've finally finished my painting of the Radium Beer Hall (can you spot where I got the title for this post?) that I was about to embark on in a previous post last year - although I keep seeing things I want to fiddle with... I spent hours on that guy's face on the right and it still looks like a fuzzy jellybaby, and in two minds about the ghostly figure standing on the bar counter (Mary Fitzgerald, a trade union activist who actually did rally her troops from the very same counter, albeit in another establishment).

Tim Quirke, our excellent teacher, has taken us step by step through a process of planning, drawing, leading the eye, thinking of this aspect and that artist, painting 'up' areas and leaving others understated. I kept taking pictures as I progressed - a little dangerous as sometimes you want to go back to a stage you've irretrievably wrecked - but a record for future reference. It has been painstaking at times, and thoroughly engrossing and free-flowing at others, but I've certainly learnt a lot and hope to put it all into practice in my own painting, or at least keep some of it in mind. Why didn't I find all these teachers when I started painting in oils 22 years ago? It would have saved a lot of trash-able canvases, maybe...though most artists have those no matter how much education they've had, from what I hear.

And a Grey Lourie in a Plum Tree

A day late for this Johannesburg version of a Christmas tree, but hoping all who visit here had a very happy day, if you celebrated - and peace and goodwill to all!

Not a pear tree with a partridge, but the greengage tree outside my studio, which was vibrating a couple of weeks ago with all kinds of birds gorging and feasting on the not-quite-ripe-yet fruit. We still have pots of jam from last year's crop so I let them get on with it and spent a happy couple of hours watching and sketching them... The thrush thinking he's lord of the manor and trying to chase everyone else off, the barbets bright and fierce looking but quite wary of the other birds and of eyes peeping at them through the window; the little grey mousebirds with raggedy tails and punk hairdos come in cheeky flocks; my favourite bulbuls (they make such sweet, clear calls to each other, "what's for tea Gregory?") and the grey louries  - or Go-away bird - one semi-tame who comes and squawks at me outside the kitchen if there's nothing to eat and to bring out some paw-paw please.

I never used to be much into birds, it was what my mom, aunts and gran did. At last I'm mature enough to appreciate the small, precious things, some positives to these years passing ever faster by!

Radium Beer Hall & Grill

Strange to be sitting in a pub at 10 am on a Monday morning, but that's where I found myself this week, sketching in preparation for another painting in the classes I'm taking (same ones as in the Kalahari bookshop, which is still in progress, and which I should be working on right now.)

This is the Radium Beer Hall, the oldest surviving bar and grill in Johannesburg. It started as a tearoom in 1929 and doubled as a shebeen which, illegally at the time, sold "white man's" liquor to black customers. The very old bar counter was rescued from the demolition of the Ferreirastown Hotel, on which feisty trade union activist "Pick Handle Mary" Fitzgerald apparently stood to spur on striking miners. A fascinating history and great pubby atmosphere - sadly the area around it has become run down and dodgy, but I hope to go back to sketch more of the customers and musicians at one of their regular live music sessions.

 I did a couple of quick watercolour sketches of a couple at the next table - I think the guy is a manager, or works there - he was on the phone a lot and told me he was very, very busy when he came to have a look at my sketch. The girl looked deeply unhappy and the conversation became more and more heated between them, all in French so - probably just as well - I didn't understand a word. As customers started arriving for lunch the argument quietened down. I'm considering putting them in my painting, how times have changed since Pick Handle Mary was around!

Kalahari Bookshop

The Kalahari Bookshop in Orange Grove is a cavern of delights for anyone who would take the time to sift through its groaning shelves, boxes and bookcases to find their particular brand of fascination (or if you're in a hurry, ask the knowledgeable owner Richard for help). I gladly accepted an invitation, along with a few friends, to join artist Tim Quirke in this tucked-away shop's day off - a Monday - to draw in this stacked to the ceiling space. 

Tim was working on a painting, and chatting to us about his methods and approach while the rest of us sketched, as we do, recording the moment in this nostalgic corner of Johannesburg. It was really hard to keep my mind on my sketch when titles that lined my childhood bookshelves kept catching my eye and drawing me to them with squeals of recognition.

After a morning chatting about art, by lunchtime we'd agreed to return over the next few Mondays to continue drawing and painting and learning from Tim the much he has to teach us. So that's what I've been doing over the last three weeks, instead of straightening the house after the weekend, laundry and keeping up with emails and blogging (and Inktober, more of which later), it's been pure indulgence in the world of tone, pattern and observation, which of course is all good!

The sketches below are studies of shape, flow, volume, light and dark, pattern, trying to make sense of the jigsaw of shapes. Hand-toned paper helps to convey something of the feel of the shop and its vintage, well-loved contents as a base for painting on later. While in theory I know of this approach to composition - notan, grouping of lights and darks to form passages - I'm very happy to feel I'm at last starting to figure out, with guidance, how to do it in a real situation...something that's mostly escaped me up to now.

To add to the alchemy, Richard's assistant Arthur kindly sits for us - he could possibly have stepped straight out of one of the books towering over us.
Next on this final (I think!) version, more light and dark passages following the studies above it, and some colour - I'll keep you posted, eventually!

10x10 Workshop 6: Watching, waiting, walking - People of Gandhi Square

I'm finally getting down to a report of the second workshop I presented in the series to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Urban Sketchers, on the 29th of April. (I missed out on workshops 3, 4 and 5 presented by Anni Wakerley and Lisa Martens, having been away from Joburg).

Photo by Leonora Venter

My focus was on sketching the people, and Gandhi Square being a main bus terminal in the city, was hoping for fairly stationary subjects waiting or slowly moving around there. We met at Joziburg Lane, which is in easy walking distance of Gandhi Square. Once again we warmed up with quick portraits of each other, but this time doing 'blind contour' drawings without looking down at the page - a little cheating went on but it produced lots of laughter and surprising, lively results.

Photo by Leonora Venter

After a short explanation and demo of 'contact points' and relating sections of the face or figure to each other and to the background - which in this case was to be minimal - and encouragement to just go for it - not to worry about results but to enjoy letting loose with line, we set off down to the square.




Of course such a large expanse of public space is overwhelming and intimidating to begin with, but it's surprising how quickly one feels right at home, once you've chosen a viewpoint and a perch, and concentrating on the task at hand helps to push curious onlookers into soft focus.

Photographs by Liesl Percy Lancaster of House of Lancaster 

 I was thrilled with the results (not all shown here) and varied attempts to capture figures who really never do stay still for more than a second or two. The act of looking hard and trying to put down some essence of them incrementally improves the ability to do so, most especially when you do it regularly and don't let the efforts of the previous day grow dim in the conscious and muscle memory. As I try to remind myself!

Here are are images from my handout booklet for the session. It covers rather a wide range of figure-sketching tips and approaches as my group consisted of a large range of sketching experience and skills.

 We also took the opportunity to record Urban Sketchers Johannesburg's happy 10th birthday message to Gabi Campanario and USk at this gathering, which was shown to him as a big surprise and tribute at the Symposium in Chicago in July. We're at 1:22 minutes in...

10x10 Workshops 1 & 2: Tablescapes & Conversations; and Histories, Relics & Collections of Sketches

We had the first of our series of 10x10 workshops on Saturday here in Johannesburg, joining the celebrations around the world of the 10th anniversary of Urban Sketchers. I started off the three 'Little Stories' classes in the pleasant and relaxed setting of the Second Cup restaurant, with simple concepts of shape, space, focus and drawing faces. Quite a lot to get through... I knew some of our participants hadn't sketched at all, or not for a long time, but wanted there to be enough to work on for the regular sketchers to build onto their skills.

This was my handout booklet to remind everyone what we covered - ellipses, basic shapes, ways to create an illusion of space and focus, and faces - pointing to artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec and Daumier - and USker Melanie Reim - for expression and character.

To try and get over inhibitions about sketching their companions, we had a quick 'Portrait Party' with one side of the table sketching the other, with a timer on for just two minutes, and then swopping over for revenge! 

 It was satisfying, and a relief - nobody seemed bored or intimidated - to see the concentration around the table as everyone came to grips with getting all the elements in fore- middle- and background, onto a page.

I did a quick demo of making loose watercolour shapes and then drawing over them with line, using the flowers on the table, and suddenly we had a lot of flower studies in between the tablescapes, but they made for a colourful final display. The Urban Sketchers Johannesburg rubber stamp caused a lot of excitement, the highlight ,apparently, for some!

And it was over...a super group of enthusiastic partakers and really wonderful results... all my prepping and unnecessary worrying worthwhile, thanks everyone!

Histories, Relics & Collections of Sketches

Our second workshop was held on Wednesday - yesterday - at Lindfield House, a Victorian home and museum, led by excellent regular Joburg Sketcher Leonora Venter.

The session started with a tour of the many rooms of the museum by its curator and co-founder Katharine Love - her grandmother and mother started the collection and she has maintained and built on it. She is a fount of knowledge of Victorian customs and antiquities, but we'll have to go another time to hear all the stories, there was sketching to be done..

After the sketchers had selected which items interested them and they wanted to feature, Leonora gave an explanation and demo of the importance of making thumbnails to plan your page, trying different alternatives and deciding which would be the best one for your chosen subject matter.

Once everyone had made their thumbnails, they planned out a full or double page spread with light pencil shapes. Leonora then explained how to work out the boundaries of each object with light 'markers' and to measure ratios, proportions and angles within these shapes, working from bigger to smaller, and looking at positive and negative shapes.

Then came the work - and fun - of filling in the details and building up contrast using darker pencil lines, pen or wash, before going on to the other drawings in their 'collection', adding text if they wanted to and had time. There are so many Victorian gadgets, curiosities, furnishings and objets d'art in this amazing old house it would take a lifetime to sketch them all.

Leonora's lovely demonstration sketch of her collected items on a practice run a few weeks before - and the sketchbook display on the lawn afterwards.