The Wicked Witches had a tough tournament, but it's only a bad spell

One of my daughters coached a grade 1&2 netball teams as part of a school holiday programme at school. It’s the funniest thing to see an extraordinarily tall teen surrounded by these tiny girls, it looks like a giraffe being attacked by a whole tribe of pygmies. The theme of the week was ‘fairy tales’ and her team decided that they wer not going to be princesses, but rather wanted to be known as “the Wicked Witches”. Lots of scope for cackling here!

I was amused to hear that one of the team suggested “The Creepy Customers”. Which is rather fun, but I am not sure what that has to do with the fairy tales we know. Perhaps they feature in one of the more obscure Grimm Brothers’ Tales.

The team had a fabulous week, but sadly did not win one of their games in the tournament played at the end of the week, although they did score one goal, of which they were inordinately proud. The aim of the week was not necessarily to build a winning team, but to teach some ball skills and teamwork, which was very much achieved.

This little illustration popped into my head and I had fun letting it have its way with me.

sibling eyes

I have long been fascinated by the strange colours that have emerged in my children’s eyes. They have a blue-eyed father and a weirdly changing grey/green/blue-eyed mother (so I’ve been told, I have no idea as I cannot see them). The weird seems to have won, but in a different way in each child. They range from greeny/blue to grey/blue to yellowy/green all with the yellow starburst around the pupils and dark blue rims around the edges.

They demanded a watercolour challenge. Pencil drawing with only the irises in colour.

Isn’t Biology interesting?

pedalling for painted dogs

I was recently asked to be the designer for Painted Wolf Wines.  My little heart went “wheeeeee!” and the designy side of me started salivating. Not because it’s wine, although they do make some very delicious tipples. I was excited about the whole package. It’s always brilliant to work with people who think the same way as you do…. supporting organic grape growers, local artists (for wine label images) and of course, the gorgeous carnivores after which they are named (a portion of the profits goes to wild dog conservation).

We have completed quite a few projects using delicious artwork from some the art pack associated with Painted Wolf Wines.  I had not put pen, pencil or paintbrush to paper to draw wild dogs until Jeremy asked me to put together a logo for their cycling adventures. Here is an extract from his email:

“Jeremy Borg of Painted Wolf Wines and Pedals 4 Paws plans a number of cycle rides over the coming years to visit most of the reserves in Southern Africa where viable populations of Painted Dogs exist and where there are research and conservation programs in place. Each ride will be different and will highlight a different area and the work of different conservation organisations. We will take a limited number of riders on each leg who will be expected to help raise funds  for a number of conservation organisations. We will use the resources of Painted Wolf Wines to communicate to a broad public about the dogs, and other related conservation issues. We plan to focus our efforts in the future on the effect which poaching with wire snares and other snares set to catch game for the bush meat trade is having on Painted Dogs and all other species, and to help by raising funds and other resources to help tackle this major conservation problem.”

If you want to help conserve painted dogs there are any number of authentic charities you can donate to: the Endangered Wildlife Trust in South Africa; Tusk in the United Kingdom; Botswana Predator Conservation Trust (BPCT) in Botswana or sponsor the riders of Pedals 4 paws by contacting Jeremy: jeremy(at)paintedwolfwines(dot)com.

pages from my sketch book of very messy cyclists and anatomically improbable dogs. The relationships between the images have no relevance, so in some instances, it looks like the cyclist is about to be attacked.. Merely making use of blank parts of the paper. Final two can be seen on the second page down on the left

My idea was to create some very simple ink drawings using a brush pen. Lines would have to have a calligraphic feel to them. This turned out to be harder than I imagined it would be. In my head I would go swish, swish, squiggle, swish and there it would be in all its glory. It took many tries and lots of swoosh, bugger, splat, swishes before I managed to get two images I could use. I think, the disasters were part of the training my eyes, brain and hand needed to get the anatomy right and decide what was important and what wasn’t.

The final swishes were converted to vector and compiled to make the image at the top of this post. I am particularly proud of the dog – he looks alert, paused in the middle of a meander, obviously thinking :”What the…..?”.

The logo is not a logo in the strictest corporate sense of the word. It is more a label for the events and is modelled on our latest label redesign for  “the den” collection of wines (soon to be launched). I think cycling through some of Southern Africa’s most beautiful wild places is a series of stories waiting to happen. Stories which begin with a group of cyclists on the horison, nature watching them approach, with some interesting interaction a distinct possibility. The real stories and photos will be posted on the Painted Wolf Wines facebook page.

I am climbing in with a few opinions on the recent furore over the Trump offspring, their manly Big game hunt in Africa and their ensuing defense of their actions. They are not apologising. In fact the twitter-verse is full of Donald jr’s defensive responses to public opinion.

Here are some of his prime justifications: When questioned whether it was wasted meat: “r u kidding me?  Everything is always eaten or you don’t shoot. It’s the first rule of hunting”  The Trump Boys did not personally skin, dress and eat the result of their merry romp around the bush – apparently they gave it to the local village: “u think we wasted the meat?  It fed a village for a month.” Nice thought, but if the photos are anything to go by: one elephant; at least three buffalo; a large male kudu; a large waterbuck; one, maybe two crocodile; a leopard and a civet… were the (reported) tally for the time they spend running around the bush. They were out there in March 2011, which is late summer in Zimbabwe and in order for this massive pile of meat to feed the village for the month and not poison them, they would need an elephant-sized refrigerator, a canning operation or huge drying and smoking sheds.

There are quite a few hunting concessions that are permitted to bring self-indulgent morons into the area and it seems they provide a full service including how to get your “trophy” home. Yes, trophies! You don’t think a leopard gets shot and they don’t want the skin?  Click here to see some of the taxidermy FAQ’s for one of the hunting concerns in the Matsetsi River Valley. My favourite (not):

“Q. How long will it take you to finish my trophies?

A. The typical turn around time is 12 to 14 months depending on the shop loading and the trophies received. Full body Elephants, Rhino, Giraffe etc, will require more time. Estimates are provided when we receive the trophies.”

Full body Elephants and Rhinos? Are you KIDDING ME?

So if anyone wants to stake out US Customs and Excise around now, they might find there is a shipment from Africa for the Trump Boys… The bits that the villagers couldn’t manage to fit into their non-existent freezers.

While the hunting outfit that they used has a lot to say on the subject of hunting and conservation – their ethics are not proven. On their website they state: “We will support any person who is against the hunting of endangered wildlife species.” So if it is not listed as Endangered, merely threatened or vulnerable, that’s okay – lets push the species over into the Endangered category by hunting it! In their rather gruesome flickr album of grinning fools – what do we see?

Rhinos (shot in 2009) – Endangered - in the linked paper you will see that they cite White Rhino populations in Zimbabwe as being in the decline – this paper was prepared in 2008. And since then, poaching has reached epidemic proportions.
Leopards – Status – threatened - Ya gonna eat that animal, Bubba?
Cheetah – Status – Vulnerable - Ditto above
Elephant -  Vulnerable - in addition to which – they have photos of big tuskers – these are the prime breeders. So because some rich idiot wants the tusks they are removing prime breeders from the gene pool and leaving the small tusked and tusk-less animals to breed into it. That is not hunting with “conservation” as their primary objective. That is hunting for the sake of ego.

Talking of egos – Old Eric must have been so proud of bagging a civet. There it is, about the size of a spaniel and probably less likely to savage your ankles. I can see no conservation or nutritional benefit from this kill. They don’t threaten human habitation, they don’t eat small children for lunch, in fact they are probably quietly beneficial in keeping the creepy crawly population down. Big up Eric, You’re the MAN!

I eat meat, I wear leather, I have no objection to hunting for the pot – your pot, to feed your family – as long as it is an abundant species. I have no objection to necessary culling of species that are overpopulated (although ironically, we don’t do enough to control our own populations). Just stop thinking that it’s cool to trophy hunt our animals. Kindly stay out of Africa, unless you want to take photographs and if you want to contribute to the local population, fund some schools so that they can pull themselves out of the cycle of poverty – feeding them for a month is not teaching a thing, it’s just being patronising.

One of the things I like about HeronBridge College is that they are building traditions as they go along. The school has been in existence for 12 years and every year, something new becomes part of the rich tapestry of the HeronBridge experience.  A couple of years ago, it was decided that the leaders in Grade 12 (counsellors) would set a theme for their year in office. They get to design a logo and have a flag printed which flies from the flag-pole outside the school auditorium.

At the end of 2011, I received an email from the newly appointed head girl for 2012. She wrote: “The Councillors were blown away by your amazing Hairspray poster. As a result of your amazing design, we would really appreciate it if you could design our councillor logo for us. ”

AAAh, one of the problems with designing stuff for the love of it is that you become a target for other request for pro-bono work, but…. flattery and an incredibly enjoyable design project will get you everywhere. There was also the fact that I really like this bunch of teens. They look you in the eye and talk to you as an equal. No mumbling and shuffling because you are part of the dreaded “wrinklies”! In the words of the head girl “Our councillor group is loud and cheerful.” Yes they are!

She went on to explain in detail, what they had in mind – the vuvuzela for noise, colourful splashes to represent their diversity, and a list of symbols that had meaning for them and the school. If every business person I dealt with had this kind of clarity, my life as a designer would be bliss! This crowd knows who they are, what they want and how to get it with charm and courtesy.

I was hooked.

The flag going up (pity there was no wind) and the logo in one colour on the back of a t-shirt

The resulting logo went through very few amendments before it was approved and was applied: In colour or black and white on school stationery; in glorious crazy colour on the flag now flying at school;  in one colour (school blue) on the backs of t-shirts; and on the grade 12′s facebook group page.

Warning to the world: Get ready – this is a crowd of young people who are going to make a NOISE and be heard in the future! 

scary stuff

Part of the plan for this holiday was that my sister and I would have some time to paint together.  I do people and animals. She is a dab hand at very loose watercolour landscapes.

Problem! (for me)

Her approach is to blithely throw paint on wet watercolour paper and develop the results. It is amazing how landscapes grow out of what seems like a rather chaotic collection of colours and brush strokes. Visit her website to see some of them.

What the heck!

I  gave it a try, not without asking myself a million times what on earth I was doing or hoping to achieve. I had to force myself to loosen up and not constantly look for  structure. My starting point was remembering the long sweeping deserted beach we had visited the day before. I made a rough curved slash of ochre and an equally ragged wash of blue and then froze. What next? Bit by bit I added pigment, getting less panicked as I progressed. But my inner crazy person kept on demanding a blob of red.  Probably because the other colours were so tonally similar and I had just got to the “what the heck” moment when it was the action of letting go that mattered, not the outcome.

I am still not sure whether this red is successful or if it just looks like I cut myself and bled on the painting. In retrospect, perhaps the crazy person got a little too enthusiastic?

Let me know what you think.

Even if it is not successful as a composition, it was successful as a confrontation – a great lesson in walking through the fear to the other side.

windswept

Another victim for my holiday drawing was my daughter. Her chosen pasttime while being subjected to the torture of the pencil was to paint her fingernails, which is why I didn’t even bother drawing her hands.

The wind had picked up as we were sitting at a table outside and it made the sitting quite interesting. Read difficult. Her hair was blowing across her face, so I was drawing different features as they could be seen through the veil. But there were moments when I wished that my pencil could really capture the movement and texture of it properly. Here I am blaming it on the pencil! Stupid pencil!

Christopher reading

This Christmas, we were on a road trip with my sister and her family. The long hours of driving through the rolling grasslands of the Free State and the arid beauty of the Karoo made me wish that I was more of a landscape artist.

Although the arty side of me wants to leap out of the car with paints and easel, when I do have a moment to paint or draw, I gravitate towards the people or animals around me.

And they are a fidgety bunch! Landscapes and Still Life painting must be gratifying because the subject matter doesn’t twitch, or move or change, except for the shifting light and maybe a bit of wind. People scratch their noses, get distracted, get bored and just can’t help moving.

I managed to persuade my nephew to sit still for me, but the trade-off was that he had to read his book. Ah well, I get the challenge of foreshortening to play with! The only problem with reading is the hands, especially on fast readers. They flip pages so often you haven’t a hope of getting them to settle down to one pose, so it was either make it up, impose upon my subject to read a lot slower or just leave it out. I decided to be kind to my victim and neither invent a strangely mutated hand nor ask him to read at snail’s pace.

Rudolph the alien reindeer

It makes perfect sense – regular reindeer cannot fly and bend time, nor do they have glowing noses.

Therefore Rudolph and company are aliens.

The third eye (usually cunningly disguised under harnesses)  is used for discerning who is naughty or nice and the info is passed on to Santa. There is only so much a fat old guy can do after all!

Very small children are immune to artifice and are able to see right through most facades. The detachable antlers did not escape his notice either. Smart boy! (drawn by Ross when he was about 4 yrs old).

Happy Christmas to all.

Malaprop(ism) ns. ludicrous misuse of word, esp. in mistake of one resembling it. (According to the Oxford English Dictionary).

A recent correspondence with a columnist for the Saturday Star newspaper revealed some of the more amusing examples that turn up on his desk.

“He was one of the guests that were reportedly invited on an all expensive paid trip.”  If this was about one of our politicians then it is probably quite close to the truth. They are very expensive people, especially when it comes to spending other people’s money.

“The new labratory will ensure speedy sample testing for avian influenza and other animal deceases.”  I guess they only test for fatal diseases. Too bad if it’s not going to kill you.

“the fact that his dinner was the last allowed him to sass out the opposition.” Everyone’s dream – let’s sass that opposition!

“The sanction or sentence of Comrades Floyd Shivambu and Sindiso Magaqa is out of quilt with established rules.” – They will be “out of quilt” as they have had quite a padded lifestyle up to now, somewhat out of kilter with the people they represent.

“The people who are really poor and disabled are overlooked as they fall along the waste side.” Sadly this one is all too true!

“in the probable Bafana startling XI.”  I feel this way about decisions made by our national sports coaches  most of the time.

“He had multiple fractions and bleeding on the brain.”  Probably what most students suffer when they have to sit a maths exam.

And my favourite: referring to an anti-climax as a “damp squid“.  A wonderful malapropism that inspired the sketch above.