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!

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!

What a Mess!

We are lucky to live in a leafy suburb with a wonderful green space in the middle of it - the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens, fondly known as Emmarentia Dam - but boy, do we have a lot of events arranged around us - many with loudspeakers booming across the valley from 6 am onwards.
Last Sunday morning, thankfully not as early, was the Color Run, "the happiest 5K on the planet", starting and ending at a nearby school; so I took my Koh-i-Noor Magic rainbow pencil (unfortunately not the sharpener) over there and started sketching the shenanigans.
It was a hot, hot morning... why anyone would want to run through arches where kilos of coloured powders are chucked over you, sticking to your sweaty brows and limbs and no doubt getting in your eyes, nose and ears, I don't know. I was much happier perched on a small grandstand observing and drawing than down there getting colourfully doused - even so I caught a few splashes on my hat and jeans.

Is too much colour a bad thing? I preferred my simple line sketches before I filled some of the shapes in later - the colours all blended together to make nondescript dusty shades, which in fact is what most of the runners ended up looking like too - red and yellow and orange and purple and blue and green make - mud.

But the real messy sketching came when my pencil was down to the wood and I turned to my new Sailor pen, which is perfect on its own with its variable line possibilities... I got way too creative trying to get coloured powders from the event to stick to my sketch, using candle wax first and later fixative, neither of which worked, the powder fell off with the gentlest blow or shake.

But did I stop there? Oh no, I persevered with watercolour splashes, ink brushes, more spray and white crayon until it was a total shambles and those pages fit only to be glued closed together. Ah well, a lesson to keep it simple and remember my sharpener next time!

The Randburg Shuffle

Not my finest sketching five hours, standing up mostly and in a soft-cover sketchbook, but I was very glad to have it with me to help pass the interminable wait in the queue to get my driver's licence renewed at Randburg Licencing Centre last week. It was my fourth trip there, having been turned away on previous mornings as only 200 people per day are accepted into the line, making sure there's no chance that anyone might have to work a minute over the 3 o'clock closing time. 

 This time I made sure I got there early, was relieved to have No.146 scribbled onto my application form, resigned myself to a long wait and pulled out my sketchbook. I noted times as I sketched in the upper left corners...
8:45 - outside the magical doorway to legal driving.
9:30 - just inside the entrance and peering through the window at the expectant faces outside

10:15 - we'd inched around the corner and a fortunate few grabbed a seat on the windowsill
10:45 - shuffled round to the back of the reception desk, where there was a bit of a show to watch. First a group who had successfully completed their applications or collections were locked into the building while a cash-in-transit vehicle collected the previous day's takings; then a series of hopefuls came to ask at the desk if they could have an application form and upon hearing the answer, responded in various outraged/desperate/crestfallen ways. [Note to self: Never throw a hissy wobbly wailing fit before this desk, it provides huge entertainment to the bored audience in the dingy background and has no effect.]

11:00 Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, I reached the bottom of the stairway, a mere 10 metres (I would think) from the front door
11:30 Halfway up. What would we do without our phones?

11:45 Up on the first floor and looking down...
12:30 At last a row of seats that we had to shift up on every few minutes...within tantalising sight of the final stage - the queue for the Cashiers. After this seat-shifting came The Room, the utopia of activity, technology and red tape, where we submitted our many documents, had eye tests, biometrics and fingerprints (of which I have none, apparently) taken - where I paid close attention and stopped sketching for fear I got sent to the back of the queue for some misdemeanor.
By 1:45 pm I was out, blinking in the sunshine, good for another five years before I have to do it all over again.

Joziburg Lane

After days of unrelenting (but welcome) rain and a forecast for more we headed for cover on our monthly sketch date last week and returned to Joziburg Lane in the city. This is a food, retail and residential refurbishment of some old buildings, including what was known as Motortown, where Chrysler, Rolls Royce and other car brands were based back in the day, before inner-city decline set in and they moved north to the suburbs.

I leaned against my car bonnet and sketched from the windows of the rooftop parking lot - I loved the curves, waves, angles and textures laid out beneath me, and the window shapes helped me to place them on the pages of my concertina Moleskine. As you may know, buildings and architecture are extremely challenging for me - I found myself getting more and more irritated with drawing all the details, when I knew I didn't want details, and my hand got more impatiently scribbly as I went along... until suddenly I realised I was enjoying myself again with almost handwriting-like shortcuts to describe the background buildings.

I decided I really wanted some of the many textures of the rooftops and used white wax crayon before going over with watercolour - not such a great idea as the effects were pretty unpredictable. When I got home I also added bits onto my pages to take some of the buildings up to their proper heights - what would Johannesburg city be without the Carlton Centre, once the tallest building in Africa?

With cramped legs from standing so long, I trekked down the 'Forever Stairs' - there isn't a lift yet - to the food court at the bottom of the building where I met the rest of our group for lunch. We left just before the afternoon/evening event was about to start, a pity as some pretty funky musicians were arriving that would have made great subjects for sketching.

I've just realised I haven't posted the sketches from my other trips to Joziburg Lane here, so for the record...

...some early musicians from their Birthday Bash for Joburg's 130th anniversary, and the huge birthday cake in the food court (also unfortunately before the crowds arrived - I think I'm getting too old for the hustle and bustle of these social happenings) and the last two from a quiet weekday morning...shopkeepers and restaurant staff at a bit of a loose end waiting for customers, in front of a wall mural that those little plants are eventually going to be trained up.

People, people, everywhere

I'm in a total tizz lately, planning the series of Urban Sketchers 10x10 workshops to be held here in Joburg (that little dot on Africa) from end of March. It's really not my natural state to plan, delegate, administrate and organise but some deep perfectionist tendencies surface and I do it to the nth degree, and nothing else, causing myself terrible anxiety and heart flutterings. I know it will be a lot of fun when it happens, and I will love sharing what I know and will enjoy the people that will come along; and the sketcher friends who are also giving classes, Anni, Leonora and Lisa are right with and behind me...it will all be all right on the night!

I'm going to focus my three sessions on basic shapes and people sketching, starting with faces and quickie portraits, going on to seated and fairly static figures, and then to moving people and bustling scenes - which is why I was doing the above sketch over coffee earlier this week, trying to work out exactly what it is that I do when I do it, and how to explain it to others. If anyone reading this is in Johannesburg March - May and wants to try some urban sketching please sign up soon, the first classes are almost booked up! The full schedule is here.

People-sketching seems to be in the ether, as Marc Taro Holmes and Liz Steel are holding a week long challenge from March 6 - 10 for anyone who wants to join in, to sketch 100 people over that time (20 a day!) and post them on social media #OneWeek100People2017 

I think I might join in, if I can calm myself enough to venture out every day to find that many people to draw. Why don't you?

Poplars and Pétanque

 Well, a very Happy Not-so-New Year to everybody... I have badly neglected my blog as I've become slightly enamoured with Instagram (it's so quick, and instant!) as well as really busy with the usual end-of-year festivities and making plans for the series of 10 years x 10 classes Urban Sketching workshops that we in Joburg have decided to take part in. (If anyone reading this is interested in signing up, click on the link and do it. We start our classes on the 25 March and spaces are limited...you can also email me at the address in my sidebar). And we made another trip to Franschhoek, where I managed to do quite a lot of sketching while my husband, Bruce, was working hard.

It was blissful to do some relaxed watercolouring from the shady stoop of one of the beautiful Forest Cottages that we stayed in at La Cotte Farm. Gardeners were taking a lunch break, with ubiquitous cellphones, from digging out undergrowth from the poplar grove on a hot, hot day.

On the right, done earlier in Johannesburg, a strongly back-lit man sketched at the airport.

On Saturday mornings in summer, Franschhoek has its local market with food, wine, music, lots of stalls to browse and a regular Boules match, just as in real France. A vintageTriumph pulled right up to the cleared patch where the game takes place and a very handsome, cool guy (far right), with two young friends, got out and joined the game. Every now and then an oblivious person strolled across the court, taken with good humour by the otherwise serious pétanque players.

One of the boules participants got stranded on the recto side of a double-page spread - from our parked car the next day I filled the empty space (I was worried I'd run out of pages) with figures outside Pick'n Pay supermarket where someone was selling boerewors (farmer's sausage) rolls at a great rate - hardly any time to sketch his customers so fast was he.

Supper one evening, again, at the Station Pub, where I've sketched before and am now warmly welcomed by the two waitresses I drew, whenever they see me (with good, reasonable food and just down the road, we go quite often - plus, as I've said, Bruce's grandfather was Stationmaster there about a century ago, so we feel quite at home!) This visit had a lively, noisy crowd that I could have sketched all night without them noticing. Revellers coming and going and the two on the right engrossed in long and earnest conversation.

Lastly, a very quick sketch of one of the angel cleaning ladies who come in while you pop out and whip around your cottage, leaving it sparkling for you to come back to and start all your eating, drinking and messing up again. I could get used to that!

A Thursday Morning in Bertrams

The sketchers group has been getting a lot of invitations lately - as Joburg warms up (and then some!) and events are planned before the rush for the coast in December.

One was to sketch some Street Theatre in the little, poverty stricken suburb of Bertrams just south of the city. We decided to go to a rehearsal on a Thursday morning, but sadly it had been rescheduled without our knowledge - so we found ourselves banging on an unresponsive corrugated iron gate in an famously lawless area. We recklessly decided to unfold our chairs on a corner and start drawing in spite of warnings by concerned individuals to keep our car doors locked etc etc.

As is usually the case when we venture out into Joburg's vastly varied streets, we soon felt part of the furniture as locals passed us by, some stopping to look and chat about drawing, some taking no notice; a father ushering his two sweet little boys to say hello to the gogos (grandmothers); an undoubted illicit exchange between a young chap and a passing mini-bus taxi driver; a woman coming to tell us her story of being kicked out of the nearby home for vulnerable people and being taken in by her kind friend, who came to join the conversation; men changing their car oil and pouring the old stuff into the empty plot next to us (ulp! - sometimes you have to just keep your mouth shut!) Only one very interested look into my sketching bag...luckily he wasn't interested in pens and paint. In the distance a corner café was bustling with activity, the peeling bark of the plane trees leading to it reflecting the surfaces of the decaying but still beautiful buildings.

It felt like street theatre in a way, even without the actors.

[And hooray, my blog list is back!]

Three days at the Mall

 I spent three days last week actually being paid to sketch - on a chalkboard - for a promotion in Sandton City shopping centre. I had to draw background themes for people to come and sit in front of and have their photos taken so it would look as if they had, for example, angel wings or a chef's hat grasping a wooden spoon and cake, or blowing seeds from a chalk dandelion. It was really effective and fun when people took part, though most in the centre were rushing to get where they were going or too shy, so we didn't get as many takers as I was expecting.
In the long waits between customers I sketched anyone who hung around for a few minutes - it's a long time since I've done such a lot of people watching and sketching, I think the practice did me good. Read the script if you want to know more :-)

A Bunch of Sketches & Visitors

 Yikes - it's April, and autumn already, and I've been so busy sketching and painting and thinking about what I want to/need to/have to do - posting it all has taken a back seat. To think I once started blogging to try and motivate myself to draw more... well, something's working at the moment!

We've had a couple of visits lately from sketchers from other parts of the country and the world. Ex-Joburg Sketcher Barbara Moore came up recently from her new home in Simon's Town in the Cape, and three of us had a relaxed morning catching up and sketching on a beautiful clear autumn day at Zoo Lake.

An icecream man pondering the lake with a beaded dragonfly mobile behind him

Waitrons and a mirrored angel - over cappucinos at Moyo restaurant 

A couple of weeks before that French urban sketcher Michel Davinroy was in town. He had been sketching prolifically on his own, but joined us at a Dance Umbrella rehearsal at the Market Theatre for the difficult challenge of capturing the unpredictable movements of contemporary dancers, mostly in the dark!

And yesterday, we arranged a mid-week sketching session in the nearby suburb of Melville to meet Brighton, England resident and world traveller Fiver Löcker.

It's exciting that we are so much "on the map" that sketchers from around the world are starting to seek us out to draw together, and enrich us all with their stories, sketches and enthusiasm! 

Car guards and basket ladies outside the Golf Tearoom in Melville

Fiver sketching on her iPad in the eclectic clutter of Antz café, Melville