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Clowns

I sat around a coffee inTours the other day, then still the Old Year, waiting for our youngest who got her hair trimmed. All around me in the brasserie hung these clowns along with clown paintings. They made me giggle. A clown does that. And they make me sad. But these clowns can’t make me sad.  Because they aren’t real. And because it was the last day of the Old Year. I didn’t want to end the year sad and I want this year to be filled with much more laughter. I didn’t laugh enough in the previous one. And so the clowns worked their way into my moleskine.

May we all have a year overflowing with good, old fashioned,  unashamedly wild laughter and may we laugh the hardest at ourselves.

…haaa ha ha ha ha ha!…

clowns1

clowns2

Sketches in moleskine, pen and watercolour.

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A bustling Amsterdam

I was in Amsterdam last week, criss-crossed the whole city and tried to do some sketching. I found it extremely difficult to sketch in Amsterdam. I struggled to zoom out the busyness of the city and capture only the essential in a scene. The canals are filled with boathouses and with sightseeing boats, the streets with bicycles and people and cars and trees obscuring the narrow houses. And I sometimes feared for my life as, standing on a spot with a sketchbook in hand, doesn’t mean you’re in a safe spot. I had to jump aside many a time, from the urgent ringing of a bicycle bell, just to hear the clang of the tram behind me, which had me scuffling quickly left, directly in front of some service truck, fleeing to the right, of course on the toes of some nose-ringed stranger and apologizing back onto one of the many black garbage bags on the sidewalk. That would have me slog shakily into the nearest  coffee shop or bookstore.

An interesting city, with a heartbeat of its own. I’ve come to recognize many of the gables of the buildings, as we have them in SA as well. We ate kroket and patatje and drank our blond beers with a lemon slice. I enjoyed koffie verkeerd in the company of Rembrandt and Van Gogh and had my dry cleaning delivered to one of the other many Van Wijks there in Amsterdam. I saw the seductive silhouet of Madame in the window of her “Walletjies” apartment and quickly put my hand over Hartman’s eyes. A busy time. A busy city. I now revel once again in the quiet of my home back here on the banks of the Loire.

So here are some efforts, drawn on site in pen or pencil in my handmade sketchbook and moleskine and finished at the hotel with a wash of watercolour. For some pictures(more interesting and much nicer than the sketches!) you can go to Myfrenchkitchen.

…many bridges, many canals, many boats, many trees, many…

 …and more…

…giant amaryllus…

…bulbs, bulbs and bulbs…

…in the way of the tram…

Posted on by Myfrenchkitchen · 24 Comments

Posting the whole page.

In my previous post, José made the suggestion that I post the full page and not only detail. So I took him up on his suggestion to show my pages, because there may be others thinking that I post the detail and not the whole sketch. I took the last couple of sketches in my sketchbook. Unfortunately it doesn’t look more interesting and there isn’t actually a bigger picture! I think you could say I “zoom in and choose to sketch detail”. What fascinates me is a broken window shutter, the the moss on a fountain, the intricate woodwork on a wall, a dilapidated door, a doorknob, the corner of a cornice, a shadow on a table, one flower in a bouquet…. so that is what I zoom in to. My sketchbooks are 19×24 cm and I use up all the space when I sketch. I struggle to paint on small format.

When I post, I don’t use any enhancement in terms of contrast or colour correction or whatever, except for the crop tool and then only to “neaten up” the page. It can be seen in image 1 and 2, where in image 2, I only took out the background and excessive white paper. And then of course I only post one page, because I scan most of the time and the whole sketchbook is too big for my scanner. And I also get nice white paper with the scanner.

Maybe it is time I zoom out and see the big picture….perhaps life could be less stressful…philosophically speaking?

…image 1…

…image 2…

…moleskine people sketches…

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Sketching moving people

I have started doing small, really quick capturing of people moving. Putting a pen to paper en sketching them on the move, not lifting the pen and only trying to capture the movement of the body, the suggestion of a movement, no details. I also choose people a little further away in distance, not close to me, so that I don’t get trapped in doing the details. Just by looking at the first and last image, you can already see the improvement – in the first, I still wanted to capture details and even if I couldn’t see it, I somehow sketched what I thought should be there, which turend it all into failures. In the last, I’ve more or less started succeeding in only going for suggestion, with some still not at all recognizable, but much better than the first images.

These sort of figures are very useful in paintings – adding some figures into a beach scene or a landscape, or a street scene. It gives movement and some personality and life to a painting. Not always, but I’ve seen street  and beach scenes come to life with just a few “idling figures” around.

It also helps a lot with concentration and focus and “connecting” the hand with the image you’re trying to capture. When looking at fast moving legs, it is hard to decide where to put which line and this is a great practice for that. I fist started looking at what the arms and shoulders do in movement and then move onwards to the hips and legs.The people sitting next to me on the sidewalk(having coffee) were very impressed by this kind of capturing and thought the little figures were trés mignon…very cute.

I so admire Gabi and José with their ability to quickly capture these little action figures in ink and they inspire me to keep working at these. I might just get better at it the more I do it. And besides, it is really fun!

They are done in moleskine with ink, and are really small and quick. Measure about 5-6 cm (1,9″-2,3″) for a little figure)…and look…NO WASHES!

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Let your hands do the talking

Sometimes a gesture says more than a thousand words… 

Sketches done in dip pen and ink(colour island coffee), with a wash, in moleskine.

 

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Something that needs fixing

The ironing is always behind.

I have to iron. I have to see sharp folds and straight flat edges on shirts and linen and skirts and yes, T-shirts. Except of course jeans. No straight folds there. That makes them look nerdy. I learnt that from my daughters.

Sketches done with rotring artist pen and water wash in moleskine.

Like with a desperate diet, I start off every Monday with the determination to iron immediately when something comes off the line. Just to see my diligence fade into submission by Wednesday. The result is a growing mountain of washing and a leaking cup of courage. So I let the mountain run its course… after all, it is already there….and wait for the magical day when my cupeth runneth over again.

I’ll probably always have this habit that needs fixing.