How to greet a witch (politely)

22 May 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in All my drawings, Inspiration, stories

Another drawing for COMIX.  This one is based on the doll called Mevrou Karwats.  In the story I wrote to go with the doll, she has a different name: Mrs Muller.  I wonder which one suits her best.  Here is the first draft of the drawing in pencil:

Here are the first few paragraphs of her story, which is called “Thorn Rose”:

“It had taken her long enough  to ring the doorbell.  Now Tanya stood hesitating, half hoping that no one was at home. Just as she was about to run back down the hallway to where the lift still stood open, the doorknob turned and the door opened a hand’s breadth. Then it closed, a chain rattled, and the door opened.

Tanya stared. This was the closest she had ever been to Mrs Muller. She could only just make out the old woman’s face in the shadowed doorway. Light from the hallway glinted in her large, heavily lidded eyes. Her dark eyebrows were drawn down in a frown. Tanya could feel the carefully rehearsed words begin to drain away. She took a deep breath:

“Greetings, wise woman. I come to consult you in your wisdom on a matter of great importance”.

She was sure those were the right words. It was important to be polite when speaking to a witch. And Mrs Muller was a witch, no matter what everyone else said.

Mrs. Muller’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“A child.” Her voice was harsh with a flat, foreign accent. “A child who wishes to consult.”

“Yes, please” said Tanya.

She was relieved. Mrs. Muller must be a witch after all, if she understood the ritual greeting. It wasn’t just her imagination. You could see she was a witch. Those long, grey dresses with the high collars that buttoned up right under her chin and the way she wore her hair, scraped back from her face and coiled up in a hairnet. And then there were the black birds that flew in and out of her windows of he flat.”

And here is Mrs Muller / Karwats as a doll:

My eyes are officially used up now

18 May 2011 7 Comments

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, All my drawings, stories Tags:

Oof.  I’ve finished my Antjie Donder drawing.  It’s too large to fit onto my scanner, so I had to stitch it together in Photoshop.  I love detail when drawing, but fiddling with digital details just gives me the horries.

I got some suggestions for what to put into Antjie’s pocket in my last post.  It turns out that she keeps a candle, some pencils, and what is probably a little bottle of Kloktoring in her pocket.

This drawing has been in my head for years.  The imagined drawing generated a story, a doll and finally, the drawing itself.

I wish living was more like drawing

12 May 2011 6 Comments

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, All my drawings Tags:

I had a totally rotten day today. Steam-pressure-stress type of day. Luckily, I was able to divert my attention into drawing and listening to James Herriot on audiotape.  Very comforting! 🙂

Apparently I’m not alone in my audiobook-while-drawing indulgence, as I found out from Jesse’s post on this topic.  I find that listening to a story while I draw sort of tangles that story into my drawing – I can remember what parts of the story I was listening to by looking at the bits of drawing I was working on at the time.  Creates a strange sort of combination, my own Antjie Donder character evoking bits of “Let Sleeping Vet’s Lie”.  🙂

Here is a close up of the front of Antjie’s coat.  She is insisting on turning out far more genteel in as a drawing that she was as either a doll or a story:

I’m not sure what to put in her pocket.  She already has a shopping bag with a doll and a dead pigeon in it, an old telephone and some tin cans in her handbag.  But what would she have in her pocket?  Something normal like a comb?  It has to be something fairly flat to fit into that pocket…

William Blake’s Inn by Nancy Williard

08 May 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in books, Illustration

“William Blake’s Inn – Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travellers” written by Nancy Willliard and illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen is simply charming.  It is an homage to William Blake in words and images.  Nancy Williard’s poems remind me more of Ogden Nash than Blake, but they share Blake’s fantastical imagery.  The Inn is inhabited by dragons, angels, bears and the King of Cats, no less:

The tiger is a recurring motif, for obvious reasons.  Just look at this mischievous beast:

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A Modern Witch by Deborah Geary

06 May 2011 6 Comments

by mashadutoit in books, fantasy

It’s been a while since I’ve done any book reviews, but I’ve been inspired to start again by my experiences in reading ebooks. My husband and myself were lucky enough to get a Kindle each as a birthday present from my sister in law. Thanks Moira!

I’ve been reading quite a few books on my Kindle, and here is one I thoroughly enjoyed: A Modern Witch by Deborah Geary.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

It’s a fresh take on the classic fantasy trope of somebody coming unexpectedly into their magical power. But unlike many others, this is dealt with a light and humorous touch – no endless pages of adolescent guilt and denial!

What I particularly enjoyed is the solid and convincing way the magic itself is portrayed. This is an area that is often glossed over in other books. Magic, how it works, its effects on people and their relationships with one another is the focus of this story. At times I wondered if the author herself is a witch, it was all dealt with in such a knowledgeable, no nonsense and practical way. 🙂

This is not the usual plot about taking-down-evil-threat-to-the-world-with-predictable-cliffhanger-ending. It’s all about relationships and people getting to know themselves and one another. I also appreciated the many strong female characters. This book certainly passes the Bechdel test!

Antjie Donder comes visiting

03 May 2011 Leave a comment

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, All my drawings, stories

As I explained in a previous post, the work I’m doing for the Comix show involves written stories, dolls and drawings.  In some cases the story came first, in others the doll did.  Antjie Donder came to life first as a doll, and then I created a story for her.  Here she is as a doll:

In the story she introduces some chaos into the life of a lonely little girl called Lauren.  A bit like the “cat in the hat”, which I used to thoroughly scare me.  Here is an extract from “Chasing Frogs”  in which Lauren first sees Antjie Donder coming down the road pushing her trolley:

Lauren climbed onto the couch and opened the window. She pushed her face against the burglar bars. The voice was coming closer. There was a noise like someone shaking a cutlery drawer and the tinny thumping of a small radio. Somebody was singing:

“My naam is Antjie Donder, Antjie, Antjie Donder”

First came a shopping trolley, filled to overflowing with bags, newspapers and various bits of junk. Behind the trolley was a woman,broad as an oak tree and dressed in an ancient ball gown that strained across her chest and shoulders. Layers of plastic sheeting was wrapped around her waist. She sang as she came.

“Antie, Antjie Donder!”

She stopped when she was level with Lauren’s window and switched off the hissing radio. Lauren looked down at her in fascination. She had never seen anyone like this before. The woman’s face was as brown as leather and looked as tough as an old shoe. She had a great beak of a nose and her hair stood away from her head in coils like knotted horns. She looked up at Lauren and smiled.

“Good morning, Madam! Got any broken things for me? Toys? Electric?”

Lauren laughed. “No, I’m not the Madam!”

“So where’s the Madam, then?”

Oops, thought Lauren. Not supposed to speak to strangers. But what now? It would be rude not to respond.

“My mother is not home.”

The woman smiled. She turned her head a little, peering past her hooked nose like bird looking at a worm. “Not home? That’s sad.”

Antjie’s outfit changed quite a bit from her initial doll form, to the story, to the drawing which I just started today.  Somehow what is possible to create on small-scale in scraps of fabric is different from what works in words, and needs even more adjustments when you turn it into lines on paper:

Looking at it now, I think I need to exaggerate her nose a bit more.  I want it to look like a hatchet blade.  Her hands also look far too genteel.  I need to make them rougher.  Maybe it’s the nails that are the problem… too manicured:

And that’s all for now 🙂

Consequences of drawing with a kitten in the room

02 May 2011 Leave a comment

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, All my drawings

That blot is most of my (expensive) ink spilled by Willemien, my father’s kitten.  Luckily none of it got on the drawing I was working on.  Here is a detail from the drawing:

I’m not sure if that drawing is finished, but I cannot continue until I’ve bought some more ink!  And here is the guilty party, looking not at all sorry for her crime:

Cutting Up Drawings

22 Apr 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, All my drawings

The drawings I’m doing for the COMIX exhibition are slowly taking shape.  So far I’ve done two inked versions for the “Nameless Girl’s”  story. I’ve scanned some of them in and am experimenting with what happens when I  cut them up into squares and re-arrange the squares.

Dealing with that self-concious feeling

11 Apr 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, All my drawings, Inspiration

In a previous post at the Comix Blog, I shared a story fragment that one of my dolls was based on.  Now I’ve been making drawings based on the same story.  I find the fact that I’m sharing my work in progress there very inhibiting.  My drawings are very stiff – I’m struggling to let the story find itself.  Instead of the work growing by chance and working by taking advantage of the accidents, I get stuck on visualising what the work should look like when it’s finished and trying to achieve that vision. Yuck.

I decided to share only fragments of my unfinished drawing, to give myself more space to make changes without feeling self-concious.  And in the process, discovered something rather interesting.  The fragments are much better than the whole drawings.  Hmmm.  Maybe that’s something to work with.

 

 

 

 

The End of the Bougainvillea

09 Apr 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in Myself

Today we drove past Wynberg Place, where we used to live.   It’s been about a week since we moved out – and in that time, the new tenants have made some changes.  They ripped out most of the plants in the garden I made there, including the bougainvillea that had grown all the way up the front of the house.

I was proud of that bougainvillea!

Here it is when it first began growing, when it was  just over a meter tall:

And here it is about two years later – stretching up all the way past the second floor window:

It made a frame for the front door:

And here is the view from the kitchen window:

I’m not as sad as I thought I would be, but it is difficult to understand.  They could just have trimmed it back a little, if it was in the way!  Sigh.

Writing about Narrative at the Comix blog

15 Mar 2011 6 Comments

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, All my drawings, Inspiration

I wrote a “work in progress” post today  on the “Comix” blog , on the work I’m doing for the Comix exhibition. I’m copying the post here:

When I draw, I tend to let my pen wander by itself and the drawings that emerge can be a little unexpected. The drawings I like best are those that seem to be scenes from stories, although they are stories I’ve never heard.  For example:

I find it interesting that I only have to create part of a story – the characters and sometimes, the setting – and my mind starts trying to fill in the blanks that will explain who they are and what brought them to where they are.  Here is another one: More

The COMIX exhibition

01 Mar 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress

OK – I admit it.  I’m guilty of blog neglect.  But that will soon be in the past, as I’m participating in the COMIX art exhibition which is part of this years Grahamstown festival.  They have a blog, and I’ve already posted about my “work in progress” over there…

OK, so that’s rather OLD work in progress, but soon, very soon, you will see some new work as I create more stuff for the COMIX show.  I’ll post about that here and at the COMIX blog.  Just as soon as this spate of freelance teaching is behind me, and I have some time to draw again.  Promise!

Self portraits

17 Feb 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in Myself

Playing with my camera and Photoshop.

Brendon plays his “gourmet instruments” at Tagore’s

17 Feb 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in Inspiration

Brendon and his Gourmet Instruments playing with “As Is” at Tagore’s last night.

He played the Chopstick Kora and what I think would be called a “Bottle Bow”,  instruments made out of everyday household objects like sardine tins, water bottles and (of course) chopsticks.  You can read more about Brendon’s Gourmet Instruments here.

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Remembering how to use my camera

13 Feb 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in Inspiration

I’m planning another (long overdue) stop frame animation.  And now I find that I cannot remember how to use my camera.  So today I practised taking photographs at different settings, using my father’s garden as subject matter.  Hopefully I’ll have some test animations up here soon…

 

 

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