Inktober 19. SLING
Inktober 20. TREAD
Inktober 21. TREASURE
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
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
February art: three men.
I had the opportunity to sit down for a coffee today on the terrace and had some men close-by to sketch. Some people don’t mind to be sketched, but the majority feel uncomfortable with being the subject. Fortunately today’s subjects were so busy with their own thing, they didn’t notice me who was hiding behind a big plant…sort of. I am very rusty on sketching people…there was a time I did it almost every day and now it happens once a year, for exactly the reason I mentioned…getting rebuked by people who don’t want the attention. Nonetheless..I present to you…the three men.all done in moleskin book(which is a little too light for my watery brushstrokes and the colour bled through to the back of the page. I don’t mind bucking pages, but I fiercely dislike colour going seeping through the paper.
Three men
pen and watercolour washes in moleskine, 22.5X13.5cm
à bientôt
Ronelle
Sketches around a cup of coffee.
Simply sketching in a tea shop in St Céré and having a coffee and croissant. No fanfare. Tout simple.
watercolour and pentel brush pen in Stillman & Birn sketchbook, 14×21.6cm
watercolour and pilot prera pen in Stillman & Birn sketchbook, 14×21.6cm
à bientôt
Ronelle
Hibiscus in watercolour.
It is raining outside, proper weather for a nice tajine, which I already have simmering on the stove. In my atelier corner, stands a vase with white hibiscus from the garden and in my Stillman and Birnsketchbook, a sketch of those hibiscus flowers.
After turning the sketch around several times, I felt finally that it looks better upside down, as in the image below. when looking at the top picture the eye wna&ts to get in at the top right corner and run down diagonally towards the bottom. Most of the time it feels uncomfortable to let the eye travel from the top to bottom. It feels more natural to travel from the bottom , upwards, over the painting and out, which is what happens in the upside down version, bottom sketch.
à bientôt
Ronelle
Books, books and books.
For those who don’t know..we are temporarily living in the barn , while we are restoring the main house. We have been here for already about 3 years..and yes, it does take that long to restore a house if you do everything yourself. In the meantime, in the barn, we a have everything we need to be comfy. That includes books. Many books.For the time, they are stacked on make-do shelves. Even if they were stacked on beautiful custom made shemlves, it wouldn’t look any better than it does now. somehow we are unable to keep bookshelves neat. It is just how it is.
..Books 1..
Watercolour and pilot prera pen in Stillman 1 birn sketchbooks, epsilon series 14X21.6cm
..Books 2..
Watercolour and pilot prera pen in Stillman & Birn sketchbooks, epsilon series 14X21.6cm
à bientôt
Ronelle
Africantapestry 