We found a new place to walk our dogs – very near here, at Alphen. The loveliest walk, all along a river, with bridges every now and then and the paths all overgrown.
Some moonflower leaves filtering the sun: More
Close up and Worrying
11 Aug 2010 4 Comments
I’m trying out my new scanner. The old one produces blurry images, and I’m thinking of doing digital prints of my drawings. Here are some details of my drawings produced by scanning them at quite high resolutions. Keep in mind that these drawings were done with a very, very fine point pen indeed:
I’m in a bit of a worry loop about the new scanner. It is better than the old one in some ways, but not perfect. If the artwork is not absolutely flat against the scan glass, it comes out looking out of focus. I’m not earning any money right at the moment, so spending any on a piece of equipment like this makes me very anxious. I need to decide if I should take it back. But will find a better one, and can I afford it in any case?
As a completely rational reaction to worrying about money, I spent the whole day reading a Dick Francis novel. Oh well. Tomorrow will be a better day.
Gardening with Dogs 2
26 Apr 2010 Leave a comment
in Myself Tags: music, shower songs
A while ago, I started creating a “dog proof garden”. I thought it was time to share some more “before” and “after” pictures. My problem was turning the “Wynberg Dog Habitat” from a desolate waste of mud and dog bones into a garden. Things were going well a couple of months ago, when I took these pictures – plants were growing behind their fences, but most of the garden was series of muddy ditches, as the grass refused to grow under the constant doggy traffic:
Wind Harps and Black Pigs
12 Apr 2010 10 Comments
in Inspiration, Myself Tags: wind harp
Yesterday morning Brendon and some friends set up a wind harp on Rondebosch common:
A wind harp is a long, long wire, stretched taut in the wind, and attached to some kind of resonating surface. The wind blows across the length of the wire and sets up a pattern of vibrations. These are amplified by the resonator so that a human ear can hear them more easily.
It’s quite magical. The harp itself is so simple and yet when it sings it connects you to a world of vibration and energy that is usually imperceptible. It’s like a small hole in reality with sounds leaking through from the other side 🙂 More
Dogs Behind Bars
03 Apr 2010 2 Comments
Sharing a small townhouse with two large, exuberant, hairy and above all – shedding – dogs can get annoying. Yesterday I finally had enough. I rushed out and bought a baby gate for the bottom of our stairs. Pippin watched me install it with an air of great gloom. He understood. The good times were over:
It’s a huge relief to have a “dog free” zone upstairs. They are only allowed up when we feel like it. Meantime, a great deal of canine hurt feelings:
But I don’t care! Up to now, if I did not vacuum the stairs at least every second day, we would have our own, rather hairy ski slope. Now (I hope) the dogs, and their hair, will be confined to the downstairs section.
Although I must admit that Pippin is allowed upstairs to perform his duty as “bath dog”. This involves keeping a close eye on me while I’m in the bath, in case I slip down the plug hole. He usually does this while he is fast asleep on his back, and snoring because he has his nose jammed up against the toilet.
Misty Morning
02 Apr 2010 2 Comments
in Inspiration, Myself Tags: kloof nek, landscape, photo
I’ve been hitting deadlines, and neglecting my blog. Just a quick post to share this morning’s walk: the sun burning away the mist over Constantia Neck.
Procrastinating with Personas
14 Mar 2010 1 Comment
in Colour, Myself Tags: pattern
I’m always finding ways to waste time online, especially when I have a lot of “real” work I’m supposed to be doing. Creating Firefox personas fits the bill perfectly. It involves a little bit of creativity and results in eye-candy. Plus, I get to apply some of my patterns!
Forest Mirror
In case you dont know, a Firefox persona is a sort of “theme” you can apply to your browser. It appears in the background to your toolbars.
Mermaid Hair More
Carnival
07 Feb 2010 1 Comment
in Myself
Last night Brendon and I went to the “Mardi Gras” carnival here in Wynberg. My little cell phone camera couldn’t really capture the beautiful lights, but some of the pictures came out quite nicely.
The rides are so theatrical. They hiss and thump and churn, and belch clouds of dry ice and loud music. More
Shower Songs
29 Jan 2010 4 Comments
in Myself
As some of you may know, Brendon and I have a musical act called “Shower Songs”. We do the kind of songs that we really love – the ones that are great to sing in the shower.
They are all “cover versions” – but of everything from blues and pop to medieval songs and folk songs. For some reason, a disproportionate number of them are about death. Which is a problem when we get asked to play at a wedding :p.
I’ve uploaded a recording of one of our numbers. Its a version of Bruce Springsteen’s State Trooper, which we did live on air for Bush Radio’s “Unhappy Hour” a couple of months ago.
Here it is – a bit rough around the edges, and the DJ added in some reverb here and there. Sort of like aural equivalent of dry ice:
Testing, testing…
If you live somewhere close by (in Cape Town, that is) we love to give house concerts, usually with some other acts lined up as well. And a special thanks to our friend Cathy Bremer who took these photos 🙂
Kalk Bay
18 Jan 2010 Leave a comment
in Myself
Yesterday was another blazing summers day. We spent it at Kalk Bay harbour, looking at the waves washing over the concrete dollose.
They made restful, sploshing gulping glupping sounds. More
Combing Sedna’s Hair
27 Nov 2009 4 Comments
My previous post referred to the Inuit story of Takannaaluk, an powerful figure in Inuit legend. This was my excuse to learn more about Inuit stories, and to do a Takannaluk – inspired drawing, as you can see. Takannaluk can be translated as “the terrible woman down there” or “the great one below”. She has many other names but is best known as Sedna, so that is what I will call her.
There are many versions of Sedna’s story. In some she marries a dog, in others she is so greedy that she tries to eat her father. Here is my own version of her story, patched together from several sources:
This is the story of Sedna. There she sits at the bottom of the sea with her long hair tangling and all her creatures coming and going around her – the sharks, the seals and the all the little fish. When the hunting is bad the Inuit people say that Sedna is angry and has called all her creature to be close to her. She is in pain and remembers who hurt her.
Long ago Sedna was a human girl, her father’s only daughter. She was beautiful and proud and many young men came courting her – but none of them were good enough for Sedna. She was content with her life as it was and did not want to get married. More
Water and Dog-wise gardening
24 Oct 2009 3 Comments
in Myself
I’ve been working at the blasted wasteland that is our backyard, and changing it from what Brendon calls the “dog habitat” into a garden. There were enemies above and below the ground. Below the soil lurked cut worm that killed everything I planted. Plants that survived the cut worm were chewed, dug up, peed upon, stepped, rolled or sat upon by Anna and Pippin.
I dealt with the dogs by fencing off areas of the (already very small) garden. Pippin did not approve:
I dealt with the cutworm by putting out some poison – which I will never, ever do again. More
Bonewitch at the Field Indaba
07 Oct 2009 Leave a comment
in All my drawings, stories Tags: heart of glass
I had to attend a two day long meeting in Johannesburg this week.
I did quite a lot of drawings in between all the arguing, including this one of the Bonewitch from “Heart of Glass”.
She did not come out like I imagined her, so I will probably be drawing her again. Hopefully not at another meeting.
Ant’s Eye View
26 Sep 2009 6 Comments
in Myself
As antidote to today’s very cold, rainy and grey spring weather, here are some pictures I took in Kirstenbosch the other day. I stuck my phone in right underneath the flowers to get an ant’s eye view of the sunny sky:
Masha du Toit 
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