Mother's Day Sketch Out

Yvonne and I arranged an impromptu sketch out at Yvonne's birthday lunch on Saturday...we planned to go to the little beach next to Lower North Battery Sunday morning at 8 am.  It would be low tide and we wanted to sketch and paint the trek fishing boats and capture the light on the ocean.

The fishermens' shack with two boats drawn right up above the beach.

It was a stunning day, and Yvonne settled down to do two quick oils of the scene, with the light she had wanted to capture.  I was more interested in the shacks and the boats.

I was particularly wanting to try out some of the framing ideas in use by Jorge Royan and some of the international "big name" sketchers, so I ditched my pen and did a pencil sketch from the other side of the railway line, deliberately leaving out a second boat.   I then converted it into pen and added frame and colour at home.

The boat, the shack and the sea.

Then a young man, whom I took to be a fisherman, and his partner, sat down to eat a meal that they had prepared, and I simply changed my angle and drew them.  It was great as they hardly noticed me.  Once again, I had an idea for a design, so positioned them accordingly and did a pencil sketch, to be finished in ink and watercolour at home.

Fisherman's breakfast

Meanwhile the dogs were being very good.  I had taken them for a couple of walks in between.  I also found that the fishing boats had some very convenient spikes for looping their leads onto!

April turns to May with Alastair & Tiffany

No sketches here...just some images of this week.

Here at our new(-ish) home in Froggy Farm we are finding that late April and now the 1st of May are lovely days, with relatively wind-free weather and some interesting fog or mist patterns.  When we woe two days ago, there was a thick layer of cloud over the sea...these photos show the scene from left to right.

Contrast this with the gorgeous sunrise the day before.

We went to have a delicious lunch at the Two Oceans restaurant at Cape Point yesterday - it was a superb day, and apart from chasing off baboons we enjoyed ourselves.

Is that a Dylan Lewis sculpture?

Tiffany and Alastair at Cape Point

We then trundled off for a little scenic drive home, via Red Hill.

Tiffany & Alastair on Red Hill overlooking Simon's Bay

It has been such a quiet time with them....I feel we should have been doing so much more...more adventurous things than walks in Cape Point or Kirstenbosch or breakfast with the penguins...we should have done some kayaking, especially with the dolphins around right now.

Next time, perhaps!

Shark Nets at Fish Hoek

There has been huge debate on the question, after some deadly shark attacks at Fish Hoek beach, of the installation of shark nets.   The trek fishermen are dead against it, and there  are concerns for the safety of dolphins and other species.

However, these nets are not the same variety as those used by KZN Shark Board off Durban.  They are not meant to entrap and result in the death of fish and animals.  For this reason they are largely experimental and require frequent removal and adjustment to allow for optimal performance and especially adaptation when the weather is bad or tides are extreme.

When we took the dogs to Fish Hoek beach for their walk the other evening I was glad to have brought my sketchbook and pens as the team were busy hauling the nets in.  Russell, Alastair and Tiffany took the dogs off for their treat (they adore walking on the beach) while I settled down to sketch as fast as I could.

The nets were dragged up onto a large trailer.

It was a busy scene and the weather was lovely - a perfect autumn day.  The sun was going down but there were still lots of people on the beach and even swimming.

Long Street Sketch Out with SASA

Victorian Broekie Lace

Today Long Street is a bohemian hangout with night life and mixed cultural restaurants, bars and bookshops.   It also has a lot of history, including the Palm Tree mosque near the corner of Pepper Street, just around the corner form the Law Courts.

We arrived before 9 am and parked in Pepper Street, and I immediately decided not to move away just yet, as I had a lovely view up the street of some gorgeous Victorian buildings, and the Palm Tree Mosque.

Palm Tree Mosque

The mosque was built as a residence circa 1796 and was bought by two free slaves, both Moslems, who converted its use into a mosque in around 1806.  It is the second oldest mosque in South Africa and is still in use today...its the only building in the street that is still in its original unrefurbished state.

Further along the street the Yours Truly coffee shop was in full swing and obviously very popular.  It is in a gorgeous building with broekie lace everywhere.

I made a good start - this time in pencil - and finished it later with the help of a photo.   I liked the hanging garden!  Long Street is actually a night life sort of place, and so it was fairly quiet, except for the odd begowned advocate scurrying off to the Supreme Court a block away - hmmm!  I meant odd as in occasional, but its a good description!

The informal traders with cigarettes, colddrinks in bucket of ice, and sweets & chips were already set up, while the street sweepers got on with clearing up the debris from the previous night's revelries.

I went back to where Yvonne and Bridget were painting, and where Mama Africa now had a sign to show they too were awake and getting ready for business.

Muizenberg SketchCrawl

We had a superb autumn day yesterday for our local participation in international SketchCrawl #39.

A group of about 10 or 12 turned up at 9 am at Het Posthuys, which is the oldest building on False Bay (circa 1670).

We had a fascinating rundown by Peter Harrison of the Muizenberg Historical Conservation Society, of the history of the building.

Peter had opened specially for us.  Then we all settled down to sketching, and it was so interesting to see what interested each person and how they saw it.

See Cape Town Sketchers for photos of others' work.

The original floor had been tamped down mud and dung covered with straw, and into this slipped oddments that were recovered by an archaeological team.  Clay pipes from Holland were of specific manufacture and design and tell a dateline story of the cottage, as do coins and other findings.

There is an old cannon on either side of the doorway of the typical 3-interleading-rooms cottage, and some examples of cannon balls of various sizes inside the building - which is now a museum.

After a while we moved to the station, part of which you can see int he photo above.   This building will be 100 years old on June 9th 2013.   I had done a solo drawing on Tuesday, as a study of the building ... fairly complex.  I chose a position on the southbound station platform, and set to with ruler, pencil and eraser (yes, abandoned the direct pen drawing for this one!) to do this sketch.

The clock tower is clad in wood and the stone arches are rather special.   Architect was J.C. Tulley, an Englishman who had emigrated to South Africa.

On the southbound station there is a dilapidated old signal hut.  I wonder what they are going to do with this?

There are more cannon on the station - it would be nice to know if these were salvaged from shipwrecks in the Bay.

We moved to the beach - the southern end at Surfer's Corner, where we found the old stepped retaining wall to be well sheltered from the cool southeasterly breeze.

There were some children drawing a sort of hopscotch and playing, but they soon ran off, being called by some adults - they seemed to be part of a larger group on an outing.

I made a reservations for some of us to have lunch at Knead, a popular beachfront bakery and cafe, and did this sketch while I waited for the table....Muizenberg and to some extent, St James, have always been special because of the rows of colourful beach huts.  

I was never fond of Muizenberg as a child, but when we did go there, and the wind picked up (as it always seemed to do after noon), we would find shelter from blowing sand in between the beach huts.

Simon's Town and the Jenny

The Jenny entering Simon's Town station

I met up with the Urban Sketchers Cape Town on the Easter weekend (Sunday) to sketch the Jenny, a 73 ton coal burning locomotive that initially saw service in Namibia (South West Africa) in the 1940's before being deployed to Paarden Eiland and the Karoo.

Cape Western Vintage Railways and  Atlantic Rail now maintain and run her.

It was a nice day, and I realised that Simon's Town station had change a bit since I caught the train to school in St James and then in Fish Hoek so many years ago.

The Jenny was difficult to sketch - very complex - but everyone focussed and worked hard at it.

I am still enjoying my aquabrush and water soluble pens - they are fast to use and in this instance I was pleased with the appearance of the steam being emitted from the 1379 kPa boilers.  

There were particularly impressive clouds of steam billowing up when they reversed the Jenny out of the statin to connect her to the other end of the waiting carriages.

Now we are getting revved up to go and sketch this Saturday at Muizenberg....should be fun.

International Sketchcrawl #39 at Muizenberg on 13 April

About Sketchcrawl

Enrica Casarosa of San Francisco came up with the idea of an intense day of sketching his city in different places - rather like a pubcrawl - and Sketchcrawl has become an international concept.

Some people do it for fun and others use it to raise funds for charity.   Some do it as a sketchtrawl - trawling for new ideas, inspiration and subject matter for paintings.

Others do it for fun, or as part of their journals, or to practice and develop drawing skills.

Cape Town Sketchers is a small group of people who like sketching, and who get together on random occasions to go and record our suburbs, city, Pensinula and country - including the events, peoples, flora, fauna and so on.   Go to https://www.facebook.com/CapeTownSketchers

You choose your own drawing or painting medium, canvas, book or whatever.

We will publish all sketches to our Cape Town Sketchers Facebook page, and to Flickr.  A selection will also be published to www.sketchcrawl.com

We look forward to seeing you there....details of the event will be published shortly.

Why sketch?

• More bang for your buck!
• No judging.
• No fees.
• Meet new like-minded people.
• Record your life, one drawing at a time.