Friday, January 13, 2012

Kite fliers


Kite fliers
I took a long walk on the beach this morning and came across a kite flying event. Families were having picnics and barbeques whilst various family members flew the kites. The children were almost impossible to sketch as they kept moving around with the kites however, one young boy stood still-ish for a while then sat down as the wind kept his kite above without any effort on his part.
Kite fliers
Kite Fliers, A5 sketchbook ©Sue Pownall 2011
Sketching onsite
WIP

I sat on the beach under the shade of a palm, as the photo on the left shows. As everything was so colourful and lots of the women were wearing saris or abayas I sketched directly in watercolours to capture both colours and the movement of cloth.

Then finally I painted some women preparing food for their family barbeque. It’s almost the same arrangement of women as in my drawing Khartoum Chai Ladies just from the other side.

Sandra of Sandradraws will confirm that I don’t usually have a problem sketching outdoors. Today was one of the days when it was. I was painting the women when a huge Asian family came along looked at what I was doing, then stood there, towering above me, waiting for me to continue eek. I made a few tentative strokes, then looked around as trying to decide on another subject. They got bored and started to chat, less than a metre away, loudly, whilst every time I went to paint their daughter came back to watch, 2cm from me. I couldn’t take the noise nor the staring, so packed up and went in search of a cup of tea.
Preparing lunch       Finally, here are a couple of photos, which I think capture the day.

Kite String ©Sue Pownall 2011

Crashed
Crashed ©Sue Pownall 2011