Prera fountain pen

February art: Café life.

February is a month in which many stores, restaurants and cafés close for a fortnight, taking their break before spring arrives with all its liveliness. Not much is happening in the mostly grey month of February. Everybody is cocooning and taking Prozac in front of their daylight lamps. Schools are also closed for a fortnight and the whole world goes skiing in February. Tradition. Except…this year is not a great skiing year with snow only on the highest peaks.

In the one café that is open during this month, I enjoyed my coffee and croissant. It is better than Prozac at least. It was stock full of people, being the only bar open in town, with everybody looking for a counter to lean on with their petit noir. I am not a counter girl, I prefer a table and a large one at that for all my clutter.

It is actually great sketching wise, when there are so many people in a bar. Nobody notices you giving him/her the infernal sketching glare, so drawing people is much more relaxed.

Streetview opposite café de la Poste in Bretenoux…Just a building across from Cafe de la Poste. I had my young German shepherd, Lindiwe with me who got impatient and I had to speed up the sketching.

Watercolor and Pilot Prera pen in Stillman & birn sketchbook, 22X14.5cm

Cafelife

sketching with Lindiwe

Café life 1, 2 3: In PMU, we all call it Cécile’s bar, life was busy and noisy and sketching went great. The only problem was that my pen got empty and it got more and more difficult to make nice dark lines.

Pilot Prera pen in Stillman & Birn sketchbook, 22×14.5cm

Cafelife-001 Cafelife-002 Cafelife-003

Cketching at Cecile

February 19, 2016 | Categories: aquarelle, architecture, art, coffee sketches, drawing, faces, france, Illustration, pen, people, People sketches, Prera fountain pen, Prera pilot pen, sketchbook, sketches, sketching, Stillman & Birn sketchbook, watercolour | Tags: africantapestry, aquarelle, architecture, art, artist Ronelle van Wyk, arts, drawing, faces, france, Illustration, pen, People sketches, ronell van wyk, sketchbook, sketches, watercolor, watercolour | 5 Comments

November yellows

There are colours to wear and colours for the home and colours to just admire. I don’t wear yellow and I don’t decorate my home with yellow, but I love yellow in nature, especially all the autumn shades.

I played around with lines and brushes, brush strokes, splotches and of course colour.

November 18, 2014 | Categories: aquarelle, art, Autumn, drawing, garden, leaves, Nature, nature sketches, november, pen, Prera fountain pen, sketches, watercolour | Tags: africantapestry, aquarelle, art, arts, drawing, france, Illustration, leaves fall colors, Nature, pen, ronell van wyk, sketches, watercolour | 2 Comments

Nature’s reds in November

The reds in nature are now at their peak and are quickly fading away as the leaves start to fall. As much as the reds and nature are/were inspiring, I couldn’t succeed in really “getting into it”. the reds tricked me, my sketching was off and my wist was stiff as Sylvester Stallone’s biceps….fit for many other things, but not for drawing. It is nonetheless part of my series for November colours..so here are they…the reds of November.