Masha du Toit

I tried drawing with a dip pen and ink again for the first time in years. Used to be my favourite medium.  I seem to have developed a fascination with “wicked women holding helpless victim”.

The Collector:

I wonder about the story.  Is the person on her shoulder a rescuer, or an accomplice?  What is with the old fashioned ladies in the painting?  Are the people in the bottles tiny, or is she a giantess?  And how did she lose her eye?

I had fun colouring in my “what the gardener found” drawing in Photoshop:

A closer look:

I spent the day sorting papers into box files.  Among the IRP5 forms, tax returns and correspondence about medical aid, I found a quite a few drawings.  One particular book was filled years ago:  I remember, I was in the middle of my masters, and was desperate for some kind of creative outlet to get away from XSLT and AJAX.

This one which could be from a story called “What the Gardener found”

I love her expression, her dainty watch, and the spray can clutched at the ready:

And notice her well stocked shelf of poisons:

I’ll post more of these “found drawings” over the next couple of days.  And maybe I’ll have fun colouring in the digital versions?  Sigh.  I intend to raise procrastination to a new level, to counteract the effect of all those files.

I’ve been drawing on my computer for the first time in ages. My wacom tablet’s been looking at me so accusingly so I just had to try again.   I did a drawing in Flash, just a random face to get back into practice.

Drawing on a computer is very different from anything else.  I find the ability to undo useful, obviously, but it can also be paralysing.  “Was that stroke right?  Maybe not (undo) and that one? (undo) maybe this one? (undo)”

With pen and paper you just have to make your mistakes work for you.  But I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Want to try something with patterns, next.

A rainy, wintery Monday spent drawing while listening to “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” audiobook.  I start working again tomorrow.  Today, I could forget about it for a while.

Earlier this year, I got a charming e-mail from Josephine Ferorelli, with a link to her website and a request to do a drawing swop.  ( Yes… I know. This is a post I should have written months ago.)

We mailed one another some examples of our work, and after some picking and choosing I sent this drawing:

and got this one in return – “Plants with pants”:

I love it – so cool and quirky.

Josephine also included this amazing postcard with an image by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo:

Thanks Josephine!  And sorry it took me so long to write about it.  Everyone else – go check out Josephine’s gallery.  I particularly like her “solar powered” drawings which (I think) are made by exposing coloured  paper to the sun through stencils and cut outs, to achieve a sort of “shadow” drawing.