Illustrating

Had the second part of the book illustrating course I signed up for yesterday in Glen Lorne with Jacqui Taylor and Vanessa Hounsell. I have really enjoyed it and am inspired to have a go. Dug out my water colour brushes and paint today and am going to get going. There are possibly going to be artist retreats led by Jacqui in the future up in Chimanimani. I am very keen to go on one.

Here are some notes I made on illustrating for those interested. Take a read.
To start off you need to carefully look at the text you are going to illustrate. You can then start making thumbnail sketches and doodles. Carry a note pad with you.

The three C's are
1. Content of the book
2. Context - is it now or the future? Where? Who? What is it relating to?
Reference your work and look up images.
3. Continuity - characters should be the same in each illustration and in proportion. You should know the character so you can embellish the story.

When illustrating you should identify who you are targeting and the amount of text that is appropriate to your audience and ratio of text to pictures. If for children (especially those who cannot read yet), it should be as visual as possible so the child can tell the story from the pictures and you can add things to entertain the adults reading the story.

You should keep theme colours and develop a story board with your sketches, noting how you mixed the particular colours with which paints. This is again important for continuity. The characters should have features that continue too and you should explore your characters in developing your story board. Do lots of sketches of your characters. Use photographs and sketches from life.

Be careful about composition and perspective and think about your view point and what to include. Think about the different planes and bear in mind what makes your foreground, middle ground and back ground. Keep it simple with these three.

Start your drawings in a free style with lots of sketching. Use this as the foundation. Then develop cameos. Go from general to particular.

When drawing adults, their features are higher up their faces, whereas children have eyes and noses lower down.

Make sure you have a focal point. Everything in illustrations respond to everything else and need to link with other pictures in a logical progression. Facial expressions of characters are everything!

Unrequited (for writing group)

You left a message saying you were madly in love with me and I blew it in my response.
I did not know if you were sincere, I did not know my innermost self.
What would I do if I were to go back, how would I now react?
Where would we be now? The past will never tell.

I was young,
I was naive,
I was unsure,
I was insecure.

If I were given the chance now, but time you have moved on.
We are separated by time and place, our lives apart by circumstance.
Yet still I wonder and can't help but think
what if?

Life is short, focus on what's important

Went to a funeral today for a girl only 5 years older than me who died of cancer, leaving a husband and baby girl. Although a tragedy, the service focused on the eternal and reminded the mourners that none of us can be guaranteed of a tomorrow. James 4:14 of "¹⁴ whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. " rang true.

The person leading spoke of how the CEO of Cocacola had given the picture of us juggling five balls in life: work, family, friends, spirituality and health. If we drop work it can bounce back, but it is as if the other four are made of glass and could shatter and be none redeemable if we drop them. Definitely something to think about.

Otherwise, have had another busy weekend. I helped waitress at the BirdLife Zimbabwe website launch on Friday evening before going on to a farewell for one of the US marines based here. At the website launch a video was aired on activities on Marlborough Vlei on World Wetlands Day. A friend and I still plan on making our own video on the plight of Harare's wetlands. The one lady I work with had been filmed speaking on World Wetlands Day but unfortunately for her, she hadn't realized her blouse was open, oops. Going on to the marines' base I watched as others played beer pong - a tradition at functions at the marines'.

Saturday morning I went to the first session of the book illustrating course with Jacqui Taylor and Vanessa Hounsell. I loved it and it has inspired me to really get going. We were shown a bit of how to use our own drawings with photoshop which opens up so many options for multimedia. I am working on something for next week and will be digging out my water colours and sketches. (For those interested I'll post my notes from yesterday).

My friend Marian was worried we might have had trouble getting to the course as it was Mugabe's Daughter Bona's wedding. We did see militia and vehicles of cavalcade police along the way but luckily no roads were closed and we could proceed to Glen Lorne unhindered.

Finished yesterday with tea at a friend's and then dinner to discuss a presentation I'm to give on wetlands this coming week. I was shown a new range of herbal teas with indigenous Zimbabwean plants such as resurrection plant among others. They were really good and I am hooked.

Happy to be in Africa for the moment

For the moment life is good and I'm enjoying my new job. The people in the office are nice and there are a lot of my age group. On Valentine's Day the directors bought each of the ladies in the office a red rose and we had pizza for lunch. Today one of my Boss' gave me a Belgian chocolate bar. There's a nice vibe in the office and it makes a big change to not be working on my own without people around me. 

I am making some useful contacts along the way too with corresponding with people at the Smithsonian Institute and other places around the world for rhino research. Hoping I can twin up with a friend who is completing her PhD at St Andrews to look at elephant psychology and training. We are also looking at partnering with local universities here.

Will be going out to Wedza in two weeks time. Hoping the snakes out there are starting to hibernate by then. They had a green mamba by the volunteer house this week.

Apart from the unrelenting power outages, life is good for the moment in Harare. I have another weekend filled with quite a few social engagements and the sun is out. The irises in my garden are in flower for the first time and I'm hoping to fit in a bit of gardening. Tomorrow I have the book illustrating course with Jacqui Taylor who wrote and illustrated the African ABC. Means I will be getting my paint brushes out, yay :)

Social Life in Harare

This past weekend turned out being a highly social one with a number of engagements at different places. I ended my week at a BirdLife Zimbabwe meeting discussing plans for water bird counts around the country for Wetlands International. My new job will involve trying to conduct one of these out in Wedza. The chairman leading the meeting had a pedantic British accent and to stress how something had been last minute used the interesting expression of "like a murder in a television drama" or something to that effect.

After BirdLife, I joined my Mum at the International School TGIF social in a lovely garden belonging to one of the staff at H.I.S.. I loved the interesting collection of textured foliage in the garden and saw vulturine guinea fowl for the first time ever. From the social I then dropped my Mum at home and proceeded to meet up with friends at the usually popular wine bar, Blue@2 in Avondale. We seemed to have picked the wrong evening though as it was surprisingly quiet. We opted to go to the Reps Theatre Members Pub where one of my friend's boyfriend, Kevin Hanson, a well known local thespian was singing and playing sax. My one friend has never met him and as prank she decided to go up to him and pretend to be an ardent admirer who disconcertingly knew that he loved Winnie the Pooh, that he lived in Monavale and that she was his biggest fan. He managed to handle it well but admitted it did unnerve him. It was very funny to watch. As punishment we were all coerced into joining in the karaoke much to my horror.

On Saturday I met up with friends who are teachers and were on half term break for coffee at The Cottage. I love the landscaping of the gardens there and it has a quaint rustic feel which adds to the charm. After coffee I then had lunch with Polish friends and we watched the Polish speed skating teams compete in the Sochi Olympics. I then went on to a braai or barbecue at my friend Lucy's. She and her parents had decked the garden out with an eclectic assortment of lamps and candles which made for a very romantic atmosphere around the bonfire which we braaied on.


On Sunday we had baptisms at the Base Church followed by a family fun day. I spent time with the Smith Family whose daughter Amy has just come back after a second round of major surgery to straighten her spine. See Amy's page on http://amysmithtrust.org/ Amy is my hero and is one of the bravest people I know, even though she's only ten.

In the evening I had a meeting to discuss the Harare wetland cause and then went to go watch the closing of the Sochi Olympics with a friend.

Next weekend will be busy too, with the launch of the new BirdLife Zimbabwe website ( see http://www.birdlifezimbabwe.org/), a farewell party for one of the US marines, a book illusrating course in Glen Lorne and then a tea party. I do well when I'm out and about though.

Into the swing of things

The start of this week went a lot better. Think I'm finding my feet a bit more in the new job and some exciting possibilities opening up. Looking to partnership with some academic institutions for research and received some positive feedback so far. Also, didn't realize the game park has volunteer programmes in Savé Valley and Vic Falls but they do and it looks like I might get to visit both at some point. We might also go help with the Hwange Game Count later in the year.

A friend who studies at St Andrews might come and do a bit with the elephant training and am contact with a lady from France who did the original training. Quite a bit of literature regarding techniques and trying to make it as humane as possible.

Watching the Olympic ice dance finals on tv with a friend. Overall today been a good day.

Into the World of Work

Well I started my new job on Monday the 3rd of February. For the time being I'm working in the office in town but I am supposed to go out to Marondera in March (for the moment for a week) and will see from there. To be honest the first week was a bit overwhelming for me. It is quite daunting trying to see what I can do in terms of coming up with research projects and making what has already been done in terms of data collection more scientific. I have looked up lots of literature on rhino and elephant training and ecology. It is a bit of a challenge trying to think of what can be done with what are very much domesticated animals. The rhinos get led out of an enclosure each day to go walk around and graze and at lunchtime are fed cattle cubes for the tourists. There is a bit of research on zoo kept rhinos in America and quite a bit on different techniques for training elephants but the conditions in the game park where I am are quite unique.

This week was a bit better. I have made contact with someone who did the initial elephant training and I felt a little bit more on top of things. Working in an office with other people has its upsides and the others in the office are pleasant. On Valentines all the ladies were given a red rose which was sweet and the directors treated us all to pizza for lunch. My main boss will be in on Monday and we're supposed to sit down and discuss things then. Hopefully it goes well. Still have to ask them for my contract and about being paid. This hasn't really been discussed again so I need to try be assertive and try bring it up tactfully.

All a bit of a learning curve and an adjustment to working a full day. Will see what happens.