Wednesday, April 28, 2010

New Joburg Painting, Stage Four

I've worked on the buildings a lot and now I've also laid in the sky.  The painting takes on much more of a 3-D look.

Monday, April 26, 2010

New Joburg Painting, Stage Three continued

In these blog entries, I'm documenting the process of painting a complex cityscape, step by step.

Plugging away, still on stage three, in which the buildings in the foreground come to life one by one.  Next I'll work on the sky.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

New Joburg Painting, Stage Three

In Stage Three, I pick out surfaces of different buildings and paint them in their right shades.  This stage takes a long time, as you can imagine.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Inspirational Film

Last night I attended this pre-screening.  I know the director, Tim Greene, and he is using some of my paintings in a later episode of this series.

The showing was held atop the arts building in Braamfontein, the one shaped like a flying saucer.  There was a great turnout, and I loved the film.  The team (it's produced by Curious Pictures) put together a wonderful combination of images and sound in this first episode, on the Karoo.  They used paintings by my old colleague Ben Coutavidis, as well, which evoked the landscape beautifully.

I enjoyed meeting Johnny Clegg and didn't hesitate to ask him, based on the inspiration of the programme we'd just seen, "What work are you doing to take this country forward?"  He responded positively to my question, as did Ivan Vladislavic who was attending.  I was fired up by the film and ready to commit to making South Africa what it can be.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

New Joburg painting, stage two

I'm in stage two of this Joburg skyline painting.  Stage one was drawing in the black and white outlines of all the buildings, and now I'm working on the shading and contouring.

This is a commission for an executive who is moving to New York and will miss his Joburg.

I took the shot from the Carlton Centre, our tallest building (usually cited as the tallest building in Africa).  In the far distance, on the horizon, you can see the Brixton Tower.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Painting in The Joburg Guidebook

My friend Nechama Brodie is the author/editor of The Joburg Book, published in 2009.  It's an informative and well-written collection of history and geography, and I've enjoyed reading it.

Now she has been tasked to transform The Joburg Book into a handy guide for visitors.  She tells me it's nearly finished.

In turn, she asked me to provide an image for the new guidebook.  I sent her one painting, and we'll see what happens next.
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