To Grahamstown and back

Well, I’m back.

We left for Grahamstown while it was still dark, and it was a misty, rainy day.  We took about 12 hours to get there.  Some of the pictures I took with my phone came out OK:


We delivered my work to the exhibitions, and only stayed for the first couple of days of the festival as I have to start teaching again tonight.  The exhibition looked grand!  Lots of very interesting work. The pictures I took of the exhibition itself did not come out so well – but I’m hoping that the Co/Mix people will post some on their blog soon.  In the mean time – here is the road from Grahamstown back to Cape Town, that we drove yesterday:

Caught in the act

Every night, Brendon puts two chairs on our sofa to stop Anna from sleeping on it and leaving it covered in white hair.   The sofa is still covered in hair despite this plan and last night I discovered why.  It seems sleeping on the sofa trumps such trivial considerations as comfort.  Her head and front paws were hanging down over the edge,  never mind how hard those chair legs must be:

I love the look on her face when she woke up:

 

How to greet a witch (politely)

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:

Dealing with that self-concious feeling

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

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

Brendon plays his “gourmet instruments” at Tagore’s

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

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…

 

 

Hot feet in cool water

I was supposed to go into town for a meeting today.  That meeting that I went into town for yesterday, because I thought that yesterday was today…

But the meeting got cancelled.  So instead of sitting in a hot bus or taxi on my way into town, I took the dogs up the mountain for a walk, and had a nice read next to the river.

Shortly after I arrived at my reading spot next to the river, it began to rain big fat drops, and everything cooled down nicely.  Smelt good too – that just starting to rain smell the soil gives off,  raindrops on hot stone, ferns, wet dog…

 

I managed to find a sheltered spot under a tree to finish reading “The Secret of Platform 13”, with Pippin keeping watch over me.

Birthday beach walk

We went for an early morning walk on the beach on my birthday, a couple of days ago.

 

Dogs had a great time dragging the kelp about:

Butterfly Rider at night

Still improving my digital colouring skills – so I’ve done a dark version of my “Butterfly Rider” drawing.  You can see the daylight version is here.

 

Feet and Flowers

I’ve been spending a lot of time at the  Haltadefinizione site – an Italian site that hosts extremely high resolution images of famous artworks.  These are works I’ve only seen in tiny prints in books, and here you can see every little crackle and brush stroke.

At first the images seem a little soft, but they get sharper and sharper as you let them download.  The interface allows you to pan around and zoom right up to the paintings, and the “full screen” button expands the images to fill your entire monitor.

I’ve always loved Botticelli’s Primavera – but now I have a whole different view of it. (And these images are a lot smaller than the version on the Haltadefinizione site, so they will fit in my blog.)

Just look at all the lovely feet:

I love these gorgeous toes among all those leaves and flowers 🙂

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Carpet of flowers

The Rondebosch Common is  covered in a carpet of flowers.  It is still winter according to the calendar, but the Common begs to differ!

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The Kitty Bourgeoisie

Ink Garden

Another automatic pen and ink drawing.  Unplanned. Pure doodle, in fact.

Dangerous Footsteps

Yesterday’s post reminded me of this sign.  I saw it every morning on my way to work (when I still had a way to work ).

I particularly like the “whilst”.

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