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…

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.

 

 

 

 

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!

Drawings of stories that don’t exist

23 Nov 2010 2 Comments

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, All my drawings

Woot!  Now that I can set my short stories aside for a while, I’m drawing again.  The stories still seem to be bubbling up in the drawings, although I have no idea what the stories are about!

I’m scanning in the unfinished black and white versions here.  I plan to colour these both digitally and on paper, just for fun.  If all goes well, I should soon be putting up a colourful version of these.

And a detail close up view:

This one is still very unfinished :

More

Work in Progress: Mevrou Karwats and Antjie Donder

04 Aug 2010 4 Comments

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress

Luckily the light was good again today, and I was able to take some more photos of my newly completed pieces.  As you can see, each puppet is installed in a large glass jar.  This is Mevrou Karwats:

And here is Antjie Donder:

Work in progress: Almost There

03 Aug 2010 5 Comments

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress

All five of my sculptures are finished, and today I took some photographs of them so that I could start finding a gallery to exhibit them.   Here are two:

Work in progress – the bases are done (almost)

31 Jul 2010 2 Comments

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress

Today I finished the stands for my puppets.   Each puppet is held up by a (hidden) velcro belt attached to a  transparent acrylic rod fixed to a wooden base.  The bases fit into the bottom of large glass jars.

The wooden bases wont be visible  – each will be covered with an appropriate surface for the  puppet attached.

For example, Mevrou Karwats – the woman with the green shoes on the left of the image – will be standing on a section of ornate carpet.  And the little school girl on the right will be standing on a mixture of white gravel and sea shells.

I’m very pleased with these.  They are a vast improvement on my previous attempts which were made of wire and were very visible and distracting.

Work In Progress – Sneak Peek of what happened during my leave

15 Jul 2008 5 Comments

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, Animation, Art, Myself Tags: , ,

I’ve just returned from a long research leave during which I worked on an exhibition. I dont like showing my work before the opening night, but here is a sneak peek.

My exhibition is in three parts. First, I wrote some very short stories. Then I created the characters in these stories as puppets. Now I am creating small drawn animations of each of these characters. I am going to show you a bit of two of the characters. There are five of them at the moment.

Here is Benjamin.

His story starts like this: More

Work In Progress – Nameless Girl

04 May 2008 Leave a comment

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, Colour, Myself Tags: ,

Having overcome an absolute torrent of procratination I’ve finally started on the second half of my coming show – the animations. This is the unfinished face of my nameless girl.

Look well, as I may chicken out and remove these work in progress posts…

screenshot of flash animation in progress

Work in Progress – Hands, Feet and Fish still hot from the oven

01 May 2008 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, Art, Myself Tags: , ,

Here is a fresh baked tray of hands, feet, heads and feet. Work in progress! I had to use my webcam to take these so apologies for the poor picture quality.

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