Sketch Muscat for Charity / WWSkC #34

Watercolour only, no under drawing.

 On Thursday 11th April, I held my annual sketching event for charity. As with previous years, the date was chosen to coincide with the April Worldwide SketchCrawl (see www.sketchcrawl.com for more info).

Robin's excellent ship

About 15 of us turned up including a couple of families who had super-enthusiastic children.

 Several young Omanis joined in, never having sketched like this before. Along with Aziz and myself they were then interviewed for the local press (but it's not been published so far).

Hatem, Ahmed, Aziz & I being interviewed.

Photo of me at Ghalyas Museum by Ahmed Al Habsi

I am still collecting money from people who sponsored me, but it looks like I have raised 205 Omani rials ($535), which I shall give to the charity next week.

*****

My next post will explain the delay in posting, unless you follow me on facebook (www.facebook.com/SuePownallArtist), then you will already know.

A day in the life of... me

I sometimes wonder where my 'drawing' time goes. Yes, I waste time on 'marketing' myself a.k.a. facebooking, checking emails, and tweeting. However, serious internet time is spent catching on my blogging friends, adding content to my facebook page, and checking out possible art opportunities etc. So after finding no time to draw today, I thought I would chronicle my day.

It started at 12.45am when I got up, not being able to sleep, in order to finish my submission for an exhibition, whose deadline was today. I went back to bed an hour later with it 99% finished. 7.30am I got up for the second time and fiddled with my submission on and off for a couple of hours, whilst facebooking, eating breakfast, showering etc. 

9.45 I got in my car and drove to the printers I use for scanning and got the drawing scanned. I then sat in the car putting it its frame. From there I drove to the gallery, which should hang my work later this year, which is at the far end of Muscat. At the gallery I swopped Festival Face #5 The Grandfather, which I had taken with me, for His Brother's Musar. The reason was that I'd received an email the evening before from someone wishing to purchase His Brother's Musar and I need to mail it to its new home in Australia.

From the gallery, it was a mad dash in Muscat Wednesday traffic (think Friday evening in Europe) to the Omani Society of Fine Arts, arriving about 11.30. I handed in my drawing, relieved, was asked about submission details, which I had emailed last week... BUT then was asked about the cd with the jpeg of the drawing aarghhh. Dashed home, cleaned scan from printers in photoshop, burnt a cd, and drove back to OSFA. As I was pulling into the carpark my phone rang, my mum, quick chat, then I sprinted into the building to drop off the cd at 12.45, just 15minutes before they leave for lunch and possibly the weekend.

I drove home again, via the post office as I'm waiting for a package of greeting cards (of my drawings) to be forwarded on, cooked and ate lunch, showered, changed, set up an autoresponder for my mailing list, and was out the door again at 2.30 to go to the day job, which pays the bills. Six hours later I got home, had a quick drink and catch up with my neighbours, ate a late dinner, and collapsed in front of a tv programme. Then, I wrote this post. It's now 11.10pm.

Time to draw??? Tomorrow I hope  after buying packing material, taking the picture to the couriers...

BTW. In case you are wondering about the picture, I'm not sure I'm allowed to publish it prior to the selection day, so I'm not posting it yet. However, here's a sneak peak in an early WIP shot.

WIP Moon Rocks ©Sue Pownall 2012

24th Worldwide SketchCrawl

SketchCrawl 24 was difficult for me here in Muscat as we still have high daytime temperatures (today 33c with 75% humidity) and it is still Ramadan so there are no cool coffee shops or restaurants to retreat to. I headed out early to avoid the worst of the heat. Luckily for me, Saturday is normally a working day, but this one is part of the Eid break, so I was able to take part in my first SketchCrawl.

Location 1: Mutrah Fish Market   I have never been here so I thought it would be a good starting point. I made a  few quick sketches of the men removing fish from their nets, and a local cat, who had also managed to remove a fish. Then it was off inside the market itself. I was pleasantly surprised as it did not smell and there were a few other women about, although not many. Feeling intimidated, I took a few photos, and then sat down to draw... but as sweet Omani men kept coming up to talk to me the results were not very satisfactory, and I scurried back outside again. There, I thought I really ought to draw some fish, which I located on the back of a pickup and then I drew some watermelons, also on a pickup. All the sketches can be seen on flickr here.

Location 2: Across the harbour  Already feeling very hot and sticky after an hour at the market, I drove across to the otherside of Mutrah. Whilst sitting in the car's AC I furtively swigged a little water, feeling like an alcoholic hiding my drinking, as it is not allowed to drink, eat, or smoke in public during Ramadan. I settled on a bench and tried to decide what to draw (and also took this photo self-portrait at the same time). I decided to paint a heavily laden cargo ship opposite. The painting is unfinished because after I had been working on the picture for about half an hour some tugs came along and took my subject away and out to sea. You can just about see the white of the tug in the photo and my quick sketch of it at the top of my sketchbook.

So, after a quick cool off in the car, it was off to my final location, in the middle of Mutrah Corniche.

Location 3: Mutrah Souq  Just inside the entrance was a conveniently placed bench, so I sat down and drew what was opposite me. Their were lots of Omanis in the market getting last minute Eid gifts, and only a few tourists. I was lucky to have this Omani lady stop long enough for me to include her in my picture. The two stalls sold different things, which is unusual for the souq. On the left, the man was selling pashminas for the tourists, and traditional Omani dress including dishdashas & kumahs (embroidered hats). Whilst, on the right they were selling traditional canes, baskets, and incense.

After nearly 3 hours, I stopped drawing as I was starting to feel very dehydrated and in need of a shower due to the humidity, and so I finished my first SketchCrawl. Although I really enjoyed myself this morning, hopefully for the next one I will find someone to sketch with.