moving day!

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Which can be found here

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After a rather slow start, we got our 2m x 4m canvas backdrops stretched and primed. The designs were scaled up and sketched onto the canvasses, before colour washes were applied to add some zing where the painting wasn’t perfect.

Of  course, with the teenage cohorts assisting – chaos and mayhem broke out all over the place!

paintbrush wars break out when painting with teenagers!

Apart from the paintbrush wars, work continued well, but was cut short by a month long holiday imposed because of our country hosting the Soccer World Cup. This meant taking a few whole days out to go back to school and paint. Not a bad situation as it would eliminate all the rather self involved acting bods who would come and watch us in their breaks and ask inane questions like: “Shouldn’t the tiger be orange?” Hard not to sarcastically answer: “Its a pretend tiger, sweetie. If we had real tigers, seals and elephants, PETA would be camped outside the building“

Thankfully, my dedicated team turned up for two full days during the vacation to complete the panels. Thanks guys (and random parents) your support and hard work was appreciated!

Four days after returning to school, the first performance was staged, so the first day back at school was a chaotic blend of construction, final adjustments and on my part, a lot of ladder climbing and serious muscle work.

I had taken the day off work to just “lend a hand” and as it turned out it was totally essential. Every one of the staff involved were up to their eyeballs in other stuff, so it became my responsibility to get the canvasses from their storage space and put into place.

Some strong armed help was briefly provided by an ex student before he got whisked off to fix the sound equipment, the student teacher assigned to me is scared of heights, so I was scaling great heights behind the scenes to lash the canvases to the one and only load bearing beam at the back of the stage.

The final effect was quite pleasing. Making the decision to keep the palette limited was a good one. With all the actors on stage, they blended in more and had the effect of being more like posters a la Barnum and Bailey.

Anybody looking at the date of my last blog will have noticed that it’s been ages since my last post. Not because I have developed an allergy to keyboards, but because life has been somewhat of a circus recently.

And the circus is literally coming to my life. I have mentioned spending a lot of time waiting for children to finish their various extra activities. One of these is the major drama production at school. Rehearsals continue well after dark and I spend rather a lot of time hanging about…

Until I decided to be totally self-serving by offering to help paint the backdrops. Yes, it sounds mad, but painting huge scale stuff would be like therapy after days spent doing commercial design! My offer was snapped up with heartfelt cries of joy and I am now “it” for the backdrop and a few other items.

A few small stumbling blocks: the budget is so tight, I have to beg, borrow or recycle materials. The whole projects has to be coordinated through overworked teachers, so it is taking longer to get it up and running than I anticipated. And finally, the Soccer World Cup is looming, which means the school is shut by government decree for a whole month. The performances start about a week after re-opening – so essentially I have about three weeks to get this done, and as I am only  painting at school during rehearsal times (after work) I am going to have to do this at speed! Nothing like a looming deadline for focus!

The show is one written by the teacher and is about a circus and the people who perform in it. Lots of scope for design except for those lovely stumbling blocks.

The plan is to recycle the boards already in place at the back of the stage (no money for canvas or frames). Tight budget means I am also restricting the palette of colours used. Red, gold and blue-purple are what I would like to do. We are painting four stylized circus posters for the backdrop (initial sketches for these are displayed in the slideshow on this post), recycling some red and gold drapes to add the effect of a tent and if all goes well, converting a refridgerator box into a ticket booth.

I will try and remember to take photos of the process and share the development of the circus with you. But I think by July I might just be ready to run away from the circus.

initial sketch for Excalibur

“And the similitude of two serpents was upon the sword in gold. And when the sword was drawn from its scabbard, it seemed as if two flames of fire burst forth from the jaws of the serpents, and then, so wonderful was the sword, that it was hard for any one to look upon it.” from The Dream of Rhonabwy (translation by Lady Charlotte Guest)

Designing Excalibur from the oldest surviving description is no easy task. The legend of King Arthur has been so romanticised and the idea that most people have is one of a Medieval knight in shining armour. One only has to look at the illustrations and paintings of  Beadsley, Rackham and Waterhouse to see that.  Non-romantic legend says that Arthur was the son of one of the Roman Briton leaders and lived in Britain around the 5th Century. For those with a sketchy idea of chronology – that would be in the Dark Ages.

Whatever the case may be, I have to explore idea for design. If Excalibur was forged in post- Roman Britain, it certainly wasn’t the huge broadsword so often depicted in pictures. It would have been a shorter Roman style sword or “gladius”. Click here to see some pretty good replicas. Yes, I guess there are people in the world that do Roman battle re-enactments.

The gladius designs I have looked at are not particularly flashy as the description implies, so the design would have to have a bit more Dark Ages bling to it.

Research into serpent images of the day lead me to Sutton Hoo. Sutton WHO? Sutton Hoo is the site of one of the most important archeological find in Britain. It consists of a series of burial mounds which were excavated in the 1930′s and revealed a boat burial site which is believed to be that of an Anglo-Saxon King who lived in that area. His sword is a bit more elaborate than the Roman ones and his shield has a depiction of a dragon on it. Hang on – a dragon isn’t a serpent! Actually, in those days the terms were interchangeable and many dragon legends from around the world describe them as looking like serpents. A beautiful gold buckle found in the grave has some truly elaborate knotwork on it and has given me some inspiration for the design of our Excalibur, which will feature prominently on the cover of the second book in the Chronicles of the Stone: The Search for the Stone of Excalibur.

Owls have been a recurring theme recently. I have been researching owls for the new book illustration project and remembered that I had some photos of a Eurasian Eagle Owl. She is a magnificent creature with the most amazingly powerful grip. Her handler told us that if she was startled or excited her grip would lock and despite the falconer glove he wore, it was rather like having his fingers crushed in a vise.

One of my daughters is delving into the FreeMe records and collating all the data on owls that have been injured or poisoned or otherwise displaced and have ended up at this wonderful wildlife facility. It is part of a project in which she will be mapping the spread of suburban development and its impact on the owl population. So far, the records have shown that traffic and poisoning are the two main factors in owl injury or death.

People are not directly poisoning owls, but are trying to poison rats and mice. Admittedly, rats and mice are spreaders of disease, but indiscriminate poisoning is doing much more harm than good. Here is the logic: rats and mice reproduce at an alarming rate. Each pair of owls will perhaps have two chicks per season. As predators, their reproduction rate is much slower than that of their prey. However, if they get second-hand poisoning from their prey, you are taking a breeder out of the gene pool and making it that much harder for them to keep up with the rats. The rats in the meantime are breeding like crazy despite the poison and their predators numbers are declining. So poisoning vermin actually helps them to proliferate! And the number of children who ingest rat poison accidentally is alarming. Wonder how many deaths there are going to be on Lord Howe Island in 2012?

What to do? Encourage owls to settle in your garden. Geoff Lockwood at the Delta Park Environmental Centre has published plans for owl boxes which will provide a good breeding place for these wonderful birds in your gardens. If you can’t face making your own box then contact Ecosolutions who have an owl box project in place.

If any of the people in your house are superstitious about owls – let them read this excellent paper by Birdlife.

Owls aren’t very wise. In fact they are birds of very little brain. Most of their skull space is taken up by their huge eyeballs which have to be that big to absorb available light on dark nights. However, we can be wise and get excited about an ecofriendly solution to pests that requires very little effort on our part!

I mentioned in a previous post that I attempting to draw every day. Easier said than done on some days when my work and home commitments have me running around like a headless chicken.

One of those commitments was a public speaking team competition which found me sitting in a school library listening to teams of 12 grade students express their views on the world. There were some interesting characters around – but probably not people who would be comfortable posing for a portrait.

sketch collection

Drawing people who are not aware that you are doing it, is tricky – you don’t want to be caught staring and they tend to move a lot – it’s good practice though! Have travelling sketchbook – will find a moment to listen and draw.

Having established that we could do it, Fiona then came into the office for a meeting, bringing all the paraphernalia to be photographed or scanned for the website. At the meeting, she mentioned that she was looking for a local illustrator who could produce black and white illustrations for the book. She wanted a Hardy Boys feel for it and, while she already had the cover created by an artist in Cape Town – he was wrapped up in other projects and she really wanted someone local.

Adrian suggested that his sister could draw and that she had done the painting in the office. (at this point imagine a massive painting of Clint Eastwood as The Outlaw Josey Wales, rendered about 25 years ago in a moment of “I need canvas and paint” to decorate a fundraising barn dance event – urgh!). Fiona asked for a meeting, probably thinking Adrian would make a phone call and it would happen another day, only to have him call me into his office and pose the question.

Sheer panic set in the moment I said yes to Fiona’s request. Questions like “what if I suck at this? What if I can’t get it the way she wants it? Why the hell can’t it have been a cartoon assignment?- it would be a lot easier than realism.” danced through my head. As you may have gathered from earlier posts – I feel rusty – I had not been in a life drawing class for eons and the realistic drawing I had done since had been quick sketches or landscapes…. eeek!

Like anything huge, the only way to tackle this problem was in small sequential chunks. Fiona was not keen to let me read the entire manuscript. This was her first baby and she was somewhat protective. She had, however, decided which pieces of the plot needed to be illustrated and she gave me excerpts from the text that described the action. She sent me descriptions of the characters and photos of her two nephews on whom she had based the two main protagonists. Oh yeah, she also sent me sketches she had done of how she thought the pictures needed to look. This was hilarious (sorry Fi!) and scary, because then I started worrying that she would hold me to the layout she imagined and they really didn’t do it for me!

Okay – tiny chunks:

1. got the text, description and sketches

2. got holiday snaps of the nephews – no expressions or actions except holiday snap poses – how was I going to render them in action without making them look totally malformed? Idea! My son looks vaguely like Adam, my nephew looks vaguely like Justin…. Okay guys – guess what you’re doing for me today? Modelling for all the scenarios in the book! Get out the camera.

3. move away from the concept of the flat action and think depth! Pen and ink gives you a marvellous opportunity to add serious shadows and drama!

4. rough sketches to scale for Fiona. Scan them and email them.

5. tweak – luckily Fiona was happy with my interpretation and only a few minor tweaks were needed.

6. use light box to transfer the images onto good multi-media paper – use a steel-nibbed pen, Windsor &  Newton black ink and have fun with the drama. Scan in the finals at high-resolution for upload to the publishers.

7. then when the marketing starts you can have fun like creating “plot” bookmarks to hand out to the kids at readings. These were a big hit at the latest reading as Fiona could use them to explain how to block out a plot when writing a book.

The book has been very well received- winning an award; being listed as a top book for 2009 as well as receiving five-star reviews. More information about this on the book website – click here.

We are now talking about book two in the series The Chronicles of the Stone (Scarab being book one). As Fiona puts it – you can’t save the world in one book. Book two involves the search for the legendary Excalibur! Time to do some research on Anglo-Saxon/Celtic/Roman design… woo-hoo!

How do I make a statement?

By drawing. I needed to express how far I would go to change the allergy policy at the school my children attended. I needed to start the meeting with a smile and I needed to dissipate any ill feelings I had created by ranting on email about some near misses.

Squirrels were perfect because the allergy is to nuts. I sketch, I scan, I play with colour in Photoshop.

I make a product which can be viewed here.

I wonder what nutty idea will pop into my head next?

Last night I attended the re-launch of  The Cheese Gourmet and Cheese Cafe in Linden.

What I found most fascinating were the stories attached to some of the people involved in this wonderfully welcoming neighbourhood shrine to good food. People who had other lives until they decided to follow their bliss into the world of taste.

Owners Jo and Brian Dick, after running a food orientated corporate gift service from home and from the Irene market,  decided it was time to open a cheese shop dedicated to selling hand-made cheese  from small producers all over the country. With the disbanding of the Dairy Board (remember that parastatal arbiter of all things cheddar and gouda?) farms started getting more creative with their cheese making and these were the people who needed an outlet.

Initially a cheese shop that stocked Japanese foods (yup – the crazy combination got them noticed), the Cheese Gourmet expanded to stock locally produced chutneys, relishes, fudge, and sausages. The next expansion saw them opening the Cheese Cafe,  which serves all these wonderful products on artisan breads. Needing a bit of elbow room, when the corner shop became available, they jumped at the chance and have now got plenty of room for both sides of the business to expand.

The Foodies featured:

Peter James-Smith, a retired radio journalist produces delicious home-made sausages.

Prof. Mark Solms, a world-renowned neuroscientist recently returned to South Africa – Solms-Delta wines were served last night and were very drinkable. I was particularly impressed by the Solms-Astor Cape Jazz Shiraz even though my tastes usually run to dry sparkling wines – this one was fun! They are not available at the Cheese Cafe (yet) but can be bought down the road at the nearest bottle store!

I got into a very interesting conversation with Brian about the cheeses served at the event. One of them was particularly addictive – a hard mature cheese that just sang to my palate. He told me it was called The Witzenberger and was produced on a farm called Kimilili. Kimilili is owned by an ex-Wall Street banker of Swiss decent who looked for and found his “farm in Africa” (say this with a Danish accent, please) and learned how to make cheese from researching the processes on the internet!

We also talked about the ex-attorney, Wayne Rademeyer, who flew 24 water buffalo out from Australia (on Qantas) and established Buffalo Ridge Farm, where he produces buffalo mozzarella. The best mozzarella on the market – a far cry from the hard blocks of waxy cheese that passes for mozzarella in most supermarkets.

These are just a few of the fascinating stories behind locally produced good food. It almost makes one want to start planning an alternative life where you can slough off the rat race, find your little piece of heaven and start producing food that people with go gaga for!

The Cheese Gourmet and Cheese Cafe are now on the corner of 7th Street and 3rd Ave, Linden, Johannesburg.

The flying cow? Originally drawn in Photoshop for the label on a body butter jar! I figured it would do well to illustrate my flight of fancy into the world of cheese.

You know what it’s like with kids. You give one a scoop of ice cream, you have to give them all a scoop of ice cream. And that scoop of ice cream better be measured down to the last melting droplet, or someone’s going to complain that someone else has more!

So I don’t get the ice cream moans anymore, because I’m very, very good at “death stares if you whine”. But I recently got hit with a new one…

We were once again waiting. But instead of the car, we had retired to a local steakhouse to feed the bottomless pits I call daughters and wait for my son to finish performing in his school’s major theatre production. I get hit with this one: “You drew my brother while you were waiting last time, and my sister while you were on the train, but you haven’t drawn me!”

No death stares necessary – how often do I get a willing victim for the sketch book? Once again, the lighting was terrible for drawing – nowadays, eating establishments don’t really want you to notice how much the burger has shrunk while the price has expanded. However, the moody, multi directional lighting gave my victim huge pupils and multiple light spots in her eyes – it made the eyes quite attractive focal points for the sketch.