Junk food Mall

This is a companion piece to the Lady on the street the two photos were taken about twenty meters from each other.

For it's size it's too complicated and I'll be more careful in the future, but this one works - it was late afternoon and this group were just resting, organizing rowdy shopping bags, chatting, smoking, eating...

It's not really a mall in the true sense; its a strip of open air shops that specialize in Halal food, and in Cape Town talk that means: high cholesterol.

Junk food Mall
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Chillies

This was a small warm up painting.



These Jalapenos are the first off my bush this year; I enjoyed painting them... then I enjoyed eating them (sounds cannibalistic!)

Matroosberg - the painting

This is the back side of the row of cottages out at the Matroosberg and is the painting based on the sketch from the previous post.

The late afternoon sun set behind blue gum trees and cottages, there was a distinct variation in tones - from the dark blue tones in the shadows to the glowing light generously sprayed over of the fynbos. As the light dipped towards the horizon colours emerged from the foliage that I'd not noticed before... it became an enchanted wonderland of shape and colour.

An icy wind blew up a few minutes after I finished the sketch, that night the wind howled and the temperature plummeted - November is normally blisteringly hot, but not on the night of this sketch.

Late Afternoon at Matroosberg

600mm x 340mm Oil on Masonite
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Sketch book - Matroosberg

We've got a little cottage out in the mountains and we don't go there often enough... I digress; this sketch was done on a trip out there late last year.
I had my box with me and I had the intention of painting, but it was too windy - the easel would have blown away! Instead I huddled up and did this sketch and took a few pictures with my cellphone to get an idea of the colours.

Back at home I did a painting of the scene - I'll post that soon, in the meantime here's the page from my sketch book:

Matroosberg cottages - 2008
Felt tipped pen on Paper

Sketch book - 11/02/2009

This man sat down opposite me, loosened his tie, snuggled into the corner and then fell asleep.

My 'real job' has been keeping me up at night (IT batch jobs) so I felt like he looked - in desperate need of sleep.

I did a quick sketch of him instead of sleeping - about 5 to 8 minutes.

Pen on paper

Oil wash sketch

This was the first painting I sold... and also one of the paintings I'm fondest of.

We'd painted the model before and I had completely stuffed up the painting, so when she walked in for this session I immediately had a feeling of impending doom, but when she posed I knew that it was going to be a fantastic session.

This painting was done as a study for a bigger work; the bigger work is still unfinished a year down the line and has very little emotional value to me. However, this little one; she's my pride and joy.

Oil sketch - 23cm x 30cm
SOLD

Lady on the Street

This lady was sitting on the steps... I don't know what she was waiting for...

The way she was sitting, the colours, just everything made me think it'll be a good painting. Like a geek I pulled out my HTC and snapped a quick picture.

I did this painting on the same night... well actually at about 3am the next morning (I had to be up for work and while the batch was running I worked on this.)



It's not for sale yet because the paint is still wet, I'll tell you this though - it's small. Bigger than a 'jumbo' photo, but not by much. I'm going to be doing a lot of smaller painting in the next while (my aim is for about 5 per week.)

Looking Away

This little 255x255mm painting was done in one sitting.

It is the first in what I hope will be a very successful series called 'Glimpses.' I'll describe the intent of the series in a separate entry, in the meanwhile here is 'Looking Away':

SOLD

Different Strokes from Different Folks

This is a fantastic idea...
Different Strokes from Different Folks

A photo is posted every two weeks and then any number of artists create a work based on that photo... there's nothing sepectacular about creating a painting from someone else's photo, it's actually unacceptable, but there is some magic here - the number of variations are incredible style, skill, interpretation, composition... there are so many variables that it blows my mind to even try contemplate the number of possible interpretations!

San Francisco Victorian
(149x210mm)
other artists

I'm treating these exercises as practice sessions - my aim for this one was to paint loosely and within an hour. I did not achieve the overall effect that I wanted, but it's not terrible either.

Of course this painting is for sale, but not yet... it's still wet!