Sketching Muscat Festival 2012

Drummers, pen in A5 sketchbook © Sue Pownall 2012

Muscat Festival, a month long annual event, started this weekend. These sketches were done on the Qurum Park site, at the festival's Heritage Village. This is my favourite area at the festival as I enjoy the different groups with their traditional dances and music.

Preparing wool, pen in A5 sketchbook © Sue Pownall 2012

I also really like seeing the traditional method of producing things such as the ladies who were preparing wool prior to spinning.

Painting the women preparing wool.

WIP Drummers.

It's funny as I went to get these images of Omanis, but I ended up with as much interest  as some of the performers. I had guys taking photographs of me painting the performers, with both professional cameras and iphones, as well as crowds of onlookers watching my every brushstroke.

Despite the spotlights, I only stayed a couple of hours as I found it hard to focus and draw in that light. In that time I had 2 pages of people sketches in ink and these 3 watercolours, so I had been productive. I plan to return on Monday and have already chosen a few traditional activities I want to draw.

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Edit: 1 Feb slightly better colour scans from a local printer.

Performers waiting to enter the Heritage Village ©Sue Pownall 2012

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NB: All sketches are completed 100% at the Muscat Festival and are drawn from life.

Chinese New Year 2012: Year of the Dragon

  YuYang Garden Dragon, 250 x160mm Pen & ink, ©Sue Pownall 2012 

I was born in the year of the dragon, which makes me 12 or 24, so I had to post something to mark the beginning of an auspicious year.

I found an interesting Chinese website, About Sichuan China, which said that

"In Chinese astrology the dragon person born under this Chinese Zodiac sign tends to be a "doer" – they do things and achieve power by getting things done. A dragon can breathe out fire so the person born in the Chinese Year of the Dragon can be a hothead. Watch out if you make them angry! However, the dragon has a soft underbelly and so in Chinese astrology the dragon person born in this Chinese Zodiac year has a "soft spot" to them. They may get angry at someone who annoys them but they also show great compassion to people in need. A dragon has a long tongue which is often seen. So in Chinese astrology the dragon person born in this Chinese Zodiac year has a sharp tongue – they will say things that can be quite sarcastic and biting. The person born in the Chinese Year of the Dragon can be quite a confronting person but if you can reach their "soft heart" they are worthwhile allies."

hmm sounds a lot like me.

Some trivia about dragons from squidoo.com/2012yearofthedragon

Chinese dragons have five toes

Korean dragons have four toes

Japanese dragons have three toes 

Notable dragons:

My friend Sherry, who is currently in Singapore, and Michelle Fabio, the amazing writer who blogs at Bleeding Expresso. Also, Isabella Rossellini, such a beautiful, talented lady, and the hardworking Reese Witherspoon were born in the year of the dragon.

Finally forecasts:

"It can be expected that the 2012 Year of Dragon would be a happy and joyful one especially for the Dragon people. It is also believed that the Dragon Year 2012 would bring for all of us good luck and charm." 2012 year-of-dragon

"So what does 2012 hold for a person born in the Chinese Year of the Dragon? Such people such double their efforts in whatever they do - work, education and other projects. Their natural talent and abilities should stand out with great results. However, watch out for that temper! Keep it in check and do not spoil your good work." About Sichuan China

OOps forgot to say about the illustration. This is from my favourite garden in the world, YuYang in Shanghai. I went there in 2001 and want to go back with my sketchbook for a whole week. There was a place nearby which made the best steamed wonton too, which was worth at trip in itself.

34th WW SketchCrawl - Muscat

Omani lady at Royal Opera House Muscat

This Muscat sketchcrawl didn't go to plan and so I ended up sketching in the new Royal Opera House as I waited to see/hear the Syrian singer Omar Sarmini. 

ROH staff

I arrived early as I had to collect my ticket and so drew 2 of the staff chatting by a doorway.

Main foyer in ROH

I then moved into the main foyer where I sketched some of the ladies standing around.

Indian ladies at ROH Muscat

Then, when I reached my seat I sketched a couple of Omanis sat in the box below me.

In a box 

All sketches were done with a 0.1 pen in my A5 sketchbook.

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, A5 sketchbook ©Sue Pownall 2011

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.
Finally, here are a couple of photos, which I think capture the day.

Kite String ©Sue Pownall 2011

Crashed ©Sue Pownall 2011

Resolution review and revision 2012

Reviewing 2011

Last year my art was pinned on three words: focus, creativity, happiness, with 3 resolutions.

  
The 1st was: To focus my life, my thoughts, my dreams on my art and market myself as much as I can. 

One of the first steps within this was to set up a facebook page "to get my finished work out there", which I did and I now have 217 who follow my page, suepownallartist. Also, I set up a twitter account @suepownall to tweet about my art with, as I write, 200 followers. The biggest two marketing things were to establish a website suepownallartist.co.uk , which went live in October, and a quarterly newsletter, which has 37 subscribers. Of course, I continued to blog and post my sketches here as normal. 

Surprising marketing successes came from a 3 page newspaper article on me and my sketching and, for me even better, a magazine article on my art with my name on the front cover.

Within this 1st resolution I also wrote "I am thinking about printing postcards and/or gift cards". I went a step further as well as printing gift cards of 2 of my pieces of work, I also had limited edition Giclée prints of 6 drawings made. I have sold several to date, which I'm very pleased with.

I also wrote that "I may develop and deliver some workshops", but due to a lot of changes I have not done that.

The 2nd was: to continue working in pen and ink with regular sketching, which I did. I planned a "minimum of 1 finished piece a month ready to try to get hung in a gallery or exhibition and to update the facebook page." Life was a bit crazy in 2011, nothing new there, so the monthly goal was not achieved per se, however I finished 9 pieces over the year, selling 3 and donating 2 others to charity. Plus I got a commission for 3 illustrations from Qatar Museum Authority, so I completed 12 pieces, they were just not done monthly. 

Trees For Life Charity Exhibtion. Photo by John Need

Surprisingly, without a body of work I had work hung in the Trans-Siberian Train exhibition, Trees for Life Charity Exhibition, and had 2 drawings juried into the CAS Winter Exhibtion. Also held in Doha was an Art event: private view of my original drawings and prints.

The 3rd was: Happiness will come from following my dreams and continuing to interact with wonderful artistic people, which it did.

Resolutions for 2012

As last year, here are my three words to guide my life throughout the year:

Yes, I kept focus as it's important to keep my focus on my art, in this year, which already is a bit crazy. Vision is my 2nd word as I need to keep myself open to opportunities, as I did in 2011. Finally, produce is the 3rd as without actually producing finished artwork, I cannot achieve anything.

Resolutions:
1. To produce a minimum of one finished piece per month.
2. To exhibit at least twice in the year.
3. Continue marketing myself.

Thank you to all of you who follow my work, take the time to comment, and who have encouraged and inspired me throughout the past year.

Birthday Ballet

 
I was very lucky in that a friend of a friend had a spare ticket for the sold out performance of Swan Lake at the newly opened Royal Opera House, Muscat. I love going to the ballet!

The costumes and sets were fantastic and the Mariinsky Ballet dancers were amazing. A bonus was that the new building is magnificent both inside and out. There are a couple of photos taken with my Galaxy below.

As you can see, whilst waiting for the performance to start I sketched some of the people in a box. The people I was sat with kindly said that there wasn’t a need for photos with my drawing and also wanted me to do the same to their programme, but then the performance started.

There is another ballet in February, which I hope to get tickets to as well.

Happy New Year everyone. 

I hope 2012 is a very productive one with lots of happiness for you.

Not a Christmas tree...

Sketching at sunset

 ... but an acacia.

It doesn't feel like Christmas here, although I was invited to a Carol concert and there are Christmas trees in the malls and hotels. As this is a muslim country we don't get a holiday, however the Dean has granted us Christmas Day off. I am heading into Muscat to have Christmas dinner with friends and their family. It is winter here, daytime temperatures are down to about 22C, so we will have the pre-dinner drinks outside on the terrace. Back to work on Boxing day - 7.30am, eek!

Acacia in Alaya wadi.

Last night there was an Omani wedding celebration on the waste ground opposite the apartment, with loud Arabic music - ouds, drums, snake charmer type pipes - and clapping and singing. Nothing like Christmas Carols or Slade's 'Do they know it's Christmas?'. It was an all male celebration. I took several photos, all without flash and have one that will become an abstract as soon as I buy some more acrylics. (Mine are in Italy). I want to sketch whilst I was there, but it was too cold (around 13c) to get my hands out of my pocket and I was trying to stay fairly inconspicuous.

Wedding celebration.

Future painting!

As I didn't sketch last night, and I have been very lazy with my art due to work and other commitments, I went out this afternoon to sketch this tree.

 Merry Christmas everyone from Oman.

May God bless you and your family.

Painting Oman

Scarves © Sue Pownall 2011

I was inspired to do some painting over the last few days, although I need to be completing some drawings.  The top one was done on Wednesday from a photo I took at the university's speech contest earlier that day. The scarves just lent themselves to being painted.

© Sue Pownall 2011

Then this morning, I went for a walk with my paints and sketchbook across the valley. I enjoyed walking around the farms (mainly date palms), and finally sat on a wall to paint this abandoned fort. I just wanted an impression of the morning and not an acurate painting of the scene, especially as over the years I have drawn hundreds of palm trees.

 Not yet finished. © Sue Pownall 2011

Juried in!

Secret Garden. Pen & ink. 380 x 260mm. © Sue Pownall 2011

I have just received an email from my mother telling me that both The Secret Garden and Al Saiq Window have been juried in to the Colchester Art Society's Winter Exhibition. 

Al Saiq window. Pen & ink 260x 260 mm. ©Sue Pownall 2011

Both are available for sale at the exhibition or as limited edition giclée prints on my website: suepownallartist

If you are in the area, why not pop along.

CAS Winter Exhibition.

St Martin's Church, West Stockwell Street, Colchester.

Finally, my newsletter is due out next week: have you signed up yet?

Long weekends are about art!

Despite having a lot of things to do this weekend, including still settling in, I’ve found lots of time for art.

Thursday, after a day of manic cleaning which included windows and curtains, I walked over to the wadi (Arabic for river bed or valley) where I collected the skull last week, for an hour or so of sketching. I had spotted a ruin, which of course I had to draw. It’s not one of my best, as I hadn’t sketched in a few weeks, but makes a start on my sketchbook – on page 3 as I can’t draw on page 1.Walking back to the flat, I spotted …

warning don’t read the rest of this paragraph if you are squeamish and don’t look at last pic of this post

…a decomposing cow. Ignoring the fact of what it was, it was really interesting especially the way the hide had ended up like folded soft suede. I sketched it on site in ink, swotting the ever present flies, and then with the dimming light of dusk went home and added the colour.


On Friday, I had my first visitor from Muscat, the amazing photographer Ahmed Al-Shukaili. He is in the process of setting up a new website, but in the meantime you can see his awesome portraits and fabulous landscapes here and here. First, he took me to a semi-abandoned village, where I spotted places to draw on another trip. Then we drove an hour out of Ibra to Wadi Sep, which has the most amazing rock formations. As we were there an hour before sunset, the colours were amazing. I was very intimidated to be taking photos alongside such a great photographer, but am happy with the two I have posted here (top & right). It was a beautiful relaxing place and whilst Ahmed worked on getting the perfect shots I took out my A6 sketchbook. I didn’t realise photographers are harder to draw than children as they move more.
 
Early on Saturday, I had arranged to go sketching with 2 colleagues, so I took them back to the semi-abandoned village. It was a beautiful morning and the temperature was perfect when we arrived just after 7.30. Unfortunately, most the time was spent walking around taking photos (mine are on flickr), although I did a quick sketch when there was a cigarette break (I don’t smoke). Next stop was the fish market to buy our dinner. It is a long process as your chosen fish is cleaned and chopped, so I left the others to shop whilst I did two quick sketches.

There are still 2 days left of the holiday and I plan to work on the Scottish ruin, which I started before I left the UK.

Beware, below is the sketch you may not like…