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!

EVERY DAY in May!

I signed up for the annual 'Every Day in May' challenge on Facebook and Flickr. Am already thinking, Oy what was I thinking!?... I decided to brush up on my watercolour skills while doing this and really enjoyed the first three days - maybe watercolour is my medium after all. I've been faffing around with oils for a while now and still don't quite feel the love.

Day 1 was a favourite food, and the only appetizing things in my kitchen were some grapefruit and avocados that we'd bought at the roadside on a recent trip to the bush. Just come into season, fresh and delicious!

Day 2 - a nearby Tree -  so I looked out of our front window and lo, there was a beautifully autumnal Pride of India (or Crepe Myrtle) that I'd hardly noticed was turning. Nothing like painting something to appreciate your surroundings.

Day 3 was Curtains and as I'd left all my painting clobber by the window and had room on the side of the page, I added the sitting room curtain plus more of the rather unkempt background garden (top of this post)







Day 4 - Bottle/s of spice or herbs. Not really inspired by this one and left it till late in the day to pull a common old bottle of Robertson's cinnamon out of the cupboard and tackle it.  Drawing it took me right to my days as a 'renderer' in an ad agency - back in the day when there were no computers, digital cameras or google. We had shelf-loads of reference magazines and racks of Magic Markers and I drew for eight hours a day and sometimes more and all weekend if there was a big campaign on - no extra pay! 'Pack shots' similar to this one were where I stared intensely at glass, plastic, ellipses, shadows and logos to work out how to recreate them 2D on paper.

Day 5 - Something Hot. Seeing as my husband wouldn't pose :) I settled for my morning coffee in a hot orange mug. Thoroughly overworked in places, I seem to be getting worse at this as I go along. Should be good for me though, if I persevere!

I'll try and post every day for the rest of May to prevent having to write so much the next time - short and sweet to get bum off seat.

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.

Christmas fare

The smell of peaches and plums is an instant reminder that Christmas is coming, and these with all the other bright and beautiful fruits in season now feels like wonderful abundance. The one Christmas we spent in the USA in glorious snow, with holly and mistletoe and jingle bells, also felt especially blessed, so I suppose one just appreciates the joys of whichever setting you're in at this time.
It is very hot here now, with a leisurely cricket match on TV in the background, a slow, sleepy feeling as Joburg empties out to the coast, with an occasional splash as someone cools off in the pool. All very laid back, but a busy shopping, cooking, preparing week ahead - with a daughter arriving from London on Monday for the holidays - thanks BA for holding off the strike!

Greengages galore

A quickie watercolour sketch of the greengage plum tree in our garden - it's laden with fruit and the grey louries and other fruit eaters are gorging themselves - watch out washing (which hangs next to the tree) here come the dive-bombers... worse, though, is that it's mulberry season too... do you know what damage flying mulberry missiles can do to white sheets?!
The fruit eaters include the dog, who is very pleased that he can help himself to plums whenever he likes, which he obviously doesn't connect to his condition of lying around groaning with tummy-ache. Do other dogs eat fruit? He also loves the avocados that fall off the neighbour's tree. When I was a child we had a dear silly old squat dog called Dagwood who tried to climb the mulberry tree to get at the fruit and got himself well and truly stuck one day.
Now why am I sitting here drawing cartoons of a long-gone pet? Because I'm procrastinating, that's why - with holidays and Christmas coming up there's so much to do and I don't know where to start, but start I must!

Food for the soul

Been very busy making those red windmills for the children at church to wave around on Pentecost Sunday in a couple of days, so just some quick sketches in my journal (also inspired by Martha at Trumpetvine Travels who paid me a visit yesterday, and who makes fantastic sketch journals).
I've been wanting to draw my breakfast for a long time - I just love it, though it takes a lot of chopping and mixing and chewing - keeps me going for hours. I discovered though, that it's not as healthy as I thought - the fruit has a lot of sugar and the granola a lot of fat, so I add more oats and make the portions smaller, except when there are delicious raspberries, and granadillas, and gooseberries and...and..

Mango season

We've had these beautiful mangoes in a bowl for a couple of days, and I thought I have to paint them before we can eat them - so I did two rather frantic watercolours over the last two days. I wanted to try different methods, to see which one is more effective to portray the intense colours, ie. (1) my usual way of mixing colours and placing them next to each other, wet on dry where I want hard lines, and wet on wet where I want soft edges and (2) the patient layering of watercolour glazes to try and produce the depth and richness of colour that really, only nature seems to perfect. Well, the layered one is still in process -still looking a bit wishy-washy in places and muddy in others - hmm - but I had to post something to get the year off to a determined start, so this is about it. I think I might do an oil painting of them to put in our newly refurbished kitchen, which is fabulous, but a bit grey.