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!

The End of Inktober

I'm pleased to relate that for the very first time I tackled - and finished!! - Inktober! Spurred on by the fact that I'd committed to exhibit the results along with a lot of other artists at Assemblage, otherwise I'm certain I would have given up around day 4 as usual. There is one missing, due to being knackered after a morning's intense drawing at the bookshop (see previous post), which I'll catch up with for the show. And that yoga one 'Deep' has simply disappeared so I'll have to re-do it.

I started thinking I'd follow the official prompts, but after several attempts at No.1 'Swift', decided I'd rather draw what was in front of me around my home, and did a series of my daughter's succulents which she's left for me to plant-sit. I ran out of those and reverted to the list - from no 11 'Run', with an urban sketching day at Rhodes Park (a future post) in between 'Fat' and 'Filthy'...can you spot those? You can see them on my Instagram if you'd like to have a closer look.

It was a good discipline to do... of course it develops pen, brush and ink skills - although I tried such a variety of techniques none of them really got polished. It was far more demanding than the hour or so per day I imagined I would spend on it, and distracted me from the recent and satisfyingly regular rhythm I'd got into of going into my studio and working on my very own projects and painting ideas - a lifelong goal. Sigh, my middle name is Distractability.

Things I'll do differently if I do it again:

• Have a consistent paper, size and format, especially if going to show them afterwards. I made them look pretty neat here, but they're all different sizes, weights and textures. I was trying to use up old stocks of paper and sketchbooks (a major throw-out has to happen soon) and the ink reacts differently on each - some paper sucking up the ink washes and making messy blots around the edges.
• Have my own restrictions and theme instead of following the prompts - although they're fun to interpret, my results were all over the place.
• Preferably draw from life - drawing from photographs, memory or imagination feels too much like work, or a commission, which I don't enjoy, although I've loved what others have done doing that.
• I'd do it quickly so that it doesn't take over my life - I tend to overdo what I do do and neglect everything else that needs to be done.

This method was quick and fun - allowing the ink do its own thing within the drawing. The drawing implement was a very cheap plastic dropper that came in an Artliner refill box. I filled it with diluted ink which flowed smoothly and in varying thicknesses over the surface, then added spots of ink here and there for darker tones and drew some finer lines out with a nib while it was still wet. As in this baby bird in a nest, 'Squeak'...

And the most time consuming one, 'Teeming' where I crazily chose insects to teem, although many of them were added as doodles while I waited for pots to boil and ovens to warm, so not as painful as it looks.

Playing with Inks

Urban Sketchers Johannesburg (yes, we're now an official chapter!) was invited by Assemblage, a local visual arts community organisation to join a challenge to use only Lamy products to produce artworks or in our case, sketches. Lamy provided a range of their pens and inks to share among the participating artists. I have my own much-used Lamy safari pen plus a spare for just-in-case, so filled those and took a few extra colour cartridges...a cool pinky red, a viridian-ish green, another luminous yellow-green, purple, and a few drops of a dark prussian blue and turquoise in containers.

A shed at 1Fox - old industrial warehouses now restaurants, bars and event spaces... note the chandelier!

Most of my sketches ended up looking purply-green and I discovered that the luminous green was the only warm shade I had, and mixed with the pink had to serve to make skin tones and browns. With a high pigment load the intensity of the inks is amazing though, a little went a very long way.

Sketching friend Leonora and I sat on a busy street corner in the city and I sketched the traders. The guy selling cosmetics, combs and sundries in the "two Rand shop" never let up his call for a minute of "pondopondotworandi", interspersed every now and then by his neighbour yelling "Walalawasaba" which, I believe, means "you snooze, you lose!"

The same corner, slightly different experiment with the pens and ink. I tried swapping cartridges in the pens to see if they would show a progression from, say, green to purple, but as the pigments are so powerful, I would've had to put in a few km's of line to show the complete changeover.

Dismal attempt at the lovely old building on the opposite corner... need some architectural drawing workshops!

My Blog List has disappeared from my sidebar... I have no idea how - I reported it to Blogger Help and someone(?) said they were aware of the problem but so far nothing has been restored. Anyone else had this happen?

Summer Umbrellas

These are six A5 drawings done from photos that I've taken over a couple of years, mostly from my car window when stopped at traffic lights or the side of the road, or while my husband was driving. I've always loved the sight of these women walking along with their umbrellas shielding them from the hot sun and wanted to sketch them - but they're moving, and I'm moving and it's been a bit impossible. So when I was thinking what to do for the Night of a 1000 Drawings charity event I decided to pull out my blurry photos and make a little series to donate. I kind of want to keep them now, but too late - they're on their way to the big night on Thursday. It's summer though, and there'll be plenty more bright umbrellas bobbing along pavements for another little - or big - series!

Figures & Form

Ecoline watercolour and Neocolor II on Fabriano 70x50cm

Graphite and marker on cartridge 59x42cm

Ecoline and Neocolor II on Fabriano 70x50cm

I spent the last Wednesday mornings of May at lovely figure drawing sessions held by the Figures & Form group in Parkhurst, in return for a 10 minute talk on urban sketching on my last day. It was lovely to slow down and spend whole hours looking, drawing and painting. These were from a session with the theme of Flappers - the top and bottom ones long poses and the middle ones two 5 minute poses. Such fun, but what does one do with all these studies..!?
The talk went well in spite of nerves, I'm a drawer not a talker!..but I had stacks of sketchbooks on display, and inspirational sketching books like The Art of Urban Sketching and One Drawing a Day and Danny Gregory's books. The group received it enthusiastically - ten minutes wasn't actually enough to say all I had to say about urban sketching. I'm hoping  a few more will join Joburg Sketchers, as well as start their own sketchbooks and journals. I forgot to take a photo, as I always do :-/ but I have to say the display looked quite impressive, I never feel like I sketch enough, but when they're all spread out - whew - 100's!!

Coffee and Dancing at the Mall

My friend Anni and I went to Rosebank Mall on our Women's Day, the 9th August (sheesh, I'm behind on posting!) We had coffee at the Mugg & Bean and started sketching the surrounding customers and waiters. We then wandered upstairs and from the balcony (under the optometrists sign in the above sketch) we sketched from the higher angle. The staff working below looked very suspiciously up at us until I showed them my sketch in progress, then it was smiles and thumbs up to go ahead. I messed this one up a bit using markers to colour it - should have used watercolour later as in the top sketch, or left it as a line drawing like the girl reading

 Nearby was a dance studio where a promotional make-up session was in progress. We were invited in and I started an unsuccessful sketch of ladies being transformed when a dance class began and I moved across the room to try and catch the - luckily quite slow - moves of the tango. The girl was teaching the guy, lots of concentration, they seemed to not notice me on the sidelines at all! I did only two of these sketches per page, but I put them together here as a sequence.

Artists Under The Sun

After the noise and bustle of the Children's Day in my last post, a couple of us crossed the road to Zoo Lake to have a look at Artists Under the Sun. A hot steamy day, Barbara and I found a bench under a big shady tree and decided to carry on sketching the relaxed scene around us. After a while one of the artists in this little group came over to have a look, and was captivated by the idea of sketching from life, in public. When I suggested that she try it, she said she felt she didn't have the 'skill levels'! I wish I'd encouraged her further, but somehow my linguistic brain goes into neutral while I'm concentrating on drawing and I only think of these things later. The word travelled though, and a little trickle of artists came wandering over to visit us, all very complimentary and enthusiastic - I think other artists really appreciate the challenges of sketching from life. I did spot one woman later, looking up and down between the view and a book on her lap - so maybe we've started a trend at the outdoor art market...

Sketchcrawl #34

Our Sketchcrawl took place at the Old Observatory, where we were greeted by a spectacular new (to me)view of Johannesburg and the strange round-topped buildings that house the telescopes, or the few that are left. The main big telescopes have been moved to the new Observatory in Sutherland, and there is a slightly abandoned air about the structures scattered around this site, though there are plans to turn it into an interactive Science Park according to their website.  

I joined most of the other sketchers - great turnout this time - on a high round platform with a panoramic 360° view. (Do go and check out Barbara's sketches for a really comprehensive visual report of the day!) I did a quick warm-up sketch of the little library and some of the towers, but wished I'd brought my Japanese fold-out Moleskine - a perfect place to fill that, I'll have to go back when I've got plenty of sketching energy and time!

I then went inside the building on the left, and ambitiously thought I'd fit in the whole telescope with its sliding window above it (I'm sure there are technical terms for all these things, but I don't know them). I didn't, and got a little grumpy trying.  




 I went off to find something more in my comfort zone, and settled on one of the lovely old windows of the Herbert Baker-built library surrounded by its warm golden stone walls.
By which time I realised how hot and dehydrated I was - and hungry - so into the cool library for a sandwich and some water, and finally found a shady place to sit on the stoop for my last sketch of the day, pleasantly peaceful apart from the sound of a persistant chainsaw somewhere down in the valley.