Friday, March 16, 2007

Picking grapes

These are my last sketches on the vineyards and grape picking in Stellenbsoch. They were done in pen and wash. I plan on using all these sketches to put together a series of paintings...hopefully it will move beyond planning!

This was much more difficult than sketching the "pickers" when they were taking a break. They really picked so fast and their heads were constantly bobbing up and down in the vineyard. Just as I thought I could capture one, he would disappear. In the end I stood further back to only capture glimpses of color in the vineyards.

The first sketch is of one of the many women pickers. This woman had such a presence about her and after a few hopeless attempts to sketch her picking, I asked her if she would keep still for maybe just one minute? The minute turned out to be much shorter than I know a minute to be, but I did manage to get her down.

The last sketch of the pressing machine was very boring for me to draw. I don't like machines of any kind, except of course my coffee machine...I didn't succeed in capturing it's function, so it is hard to see what happens where, but at least you have an where the grapes fall into the shaft...






















































11 comments:

caseytoussaint said...

Wow, Ronell, these are incredible. They tell so much - travel journaling at it's best. I hope there are more to come!

Lin said...

These are STUNNING!!! Fresh, VIBRANT! GREAT USE of ink and wash -- lovely lovely lovely!! DITTO!! MORE !!!

Gabriel Campanario said...

ronell, i can blog-travel to these vineyards thanks to these moments you captured so well with your pen and washes! i really like them. the first one is my favorite. look forward to more!

Ujwala Prabhu said...

the whole series of them are fabulous! and i hope that you do get around to making paintings from them.

Jana Bouc said...

Wonderful work! All that's missing is the glass of wine! You really captured all the steps along the way and your drawings of people are really excellent! I love the colors.

Africantapestry and Myfrenchkitchen said...

Thank you all, for the encouraging comments..
ronell

Anonymous said...

Hi Ronell This looks cool.

Anonymous said...

What can I say except that these are just beautiful!

laserone_ said...

Oh my gosh, these are just beautiful. Really nice work!!! ...by the way, "Peeps" are little marshmallow candies coated in colored sugar. I just did a second Peep drawing on my art blog and also wrote a bit about peeps and provided pictures and links. Heheheh. :)

"Maggie & Kevin" said...

Ronell,

I love your loose sketches and colors of the vineyards and that capture moments of time. Wonderful!

I want to say thank you for visiting my blog and glad you liked my blind contour. I love drawing them!

Africantapestry and Myfrenchkitchen said...

Thank you everybody for the nice comments, I really appraciate your visiting!
Ronell