Small etchings

I created a collection of small etchings. Each of them not much larger than a postage stamp. The process was absolutely facinating, The artworks are relatively small and one could still put in beautifully fine detail. As the plates are so small I could ink up and polish each plate to end up with an unique artpiece .

I used the drypoint techneque exclusively and after finishing several more series I am still discovering new ways of exploiting the medium .

With Covid and its aftermath chanses to exhibit was very limited. So I decided to have an online sale. The advantages of this is that there are no gallery fees . You can buy artwork for a really good price! The disadvantages are that the buyer cansee the art works (unless you visit me in my studio) and that we can’t enjoy a glass of wine together at the exhibition opening.

The artworks will sell at R 250,00 each . contact me here or on facebook messenger if you are interisted.

Etching gallery

Book Making Course

I had the great opportunity lately to join George Wentzel for a course on book binding. It was so refreshing to do something so totally out of your daily experience.

I always loved books, especially if they are well bound. for many years I have been keeping a travel journal and lately, started keeping, what I call, a visual journal. In it comes creative thoughts, random sketches and experimental art stuff, combined by special memories. (Even as much as a wine bottle label that is special and I will include the company I had when I drank it. Wine is always a social event in our house.)

Sketch books available in shops are so expensive, often poorly bound for intensive use, and the quality of paper often not up to the standard I need for the art media I use. I have been making my own style of journals for many years with better quality drawing paper. These I cover with leather and often a combination of leather and upholstery material.
My journals gives me endless joy,

BUT:

I always knew that I do not really know what I am doing when making books.

Along comes an opportunity for book binding and I jumped at the opportunity. George is an incredible teacher. We started off with blank papers and ended up with professionally bound books. They do not even look handmade!

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We were taught bookbinding, ways to sew the parts of a book together and how to apply endpapers and then bind the book together with the mall. Only now did we start preparing the covers.

We were taught to do all, from paper, material to leather binding, as well as quarter- and half binding that I found fascinating.

It was a joyous experience. Does anybody want to learn how to do it too?

Daylight Robbery

Daylight robbery

With the building of the new house, or should I start again with: when planning to build a home, all sorts of interesting developments tend to crop up.

After plans were drawn up I was surprised to hear about the new law that prescribes the percentage of windows that is allowed in any specific room in a house, especially where western and eastern windows are concerned.This is to ensure optimal energy consumption in the home.

While this makes sense in an economic unit I think it should be my choice if I bought property that would enable me to have a home with an incredible view, I should be able to build the house of my dreams with the view of my dreams. Why should I be penalized because of a new law if all the houses in the area is not compliant, because they were built before the new law was written. I did take a lot of precautions already, but I don’t want to give up on having a great view.

While I was pondering this Frederika asked me an interesting question. “Where does the saying: Daylight robbery come from.” I had no idea.

Apparently in England people, in the late Middle Ages, were taxed for the amount of glass windows that they could afford to have in their homes. This forced many of them to have either very small windows or even no windows at all in some rooms. It led to very dark interiors even in daylight hours. Hence the term; Daylight Robbery.

This new law that prohibits bigger windows make me want to proclaim out loud that this is absolute daylight robbery! Is

The facades

After several meetings with the architect we are at a point where we can start talking about “our house” with a picture of what it might look like in my mind. I have a very visual brain. I tend to visualize things in images. I can only properly think of things if I can see what it should look like.

The first stage of planning was floor space and how to accommodate it in the slope of the land without too much excavation. Seeing that we had very specific needs it took us some time to get to the ideal. With great excitement we reached a step in the planning that we were happy with. It meant that we had to go back several times to “the drawing board “ and to start all over again. Especially the kitchen had great challenges as we have very specific needs there. Above all, we do not want to make the place too big.

Once again, I am impressed with how much thinking goes into simplicity. We have such set ideas of what things should be like, that it takes imagination to change ideas in your head. At last our floor plan was finished. We are satisfied with traffic flow through the more public spaces, enough light, cross ventilation, sun angles summer and winter, views, wind direction not to talk about things like storage space privacy in certain areas and a thousand other small concerns important to us. That includes studio space for me, a home office for Frederika and even a small place for woodwork and a tinkering place for me to play in.

Even with the house spread over ( technically) four levels, we still planned it that we would need to use the stairs in our direct living space as little as possible, as we plan to live there into old age if we are fortunate enough to have that luxury. It means that living area, main bedroom and garages are on one level. (I am not going to carry groceries up and down flights of stairs if I can help it!)

So far so good! The next step was the design of the facades. What a shock to see that the perfect house looks just like all the other new houses in the area. I do not really know what I expected, but always having lived in older houses in Worcester this modern monster did not fit into my picture of home. I brooded for 24 hours before I accepted that I actually opted for something totally new ( that might also be translated as modern).

I sat down thinking about what upset me and then started to redesign the look by lining up windows and creating unified lines and areas of contrast in color and texture. Fortunately the architect is a patient man. The next set of plans were perfect.

The Saga Continues

Weekly meetings with our architect seems to become a highlight in our busy weeks. The first meeting was to establish our basic needs, what exactly we need in our new house, which land surveyor we want to use as we need to know the exact contours of the stand. We want to use the contours of the land as closely as possible so that we can minimize excavation.

With the second meeting Wilhelm had a basic floor plan. It was very exciting and extremely disappointing at the same time. The ideas were brilliant, I must confess, but it was not what we had in mind. Well, not exactly… So we brooded over the plans. We could not respond immediately as the next day I was part of an art exhibition opening in Wellington, and the Monday morning the exams of our post graduate Ethics course started in Stellenbosch.

On Monday night we tackled the problem. Poor Wilhelm got a detailed e-mail discussing every detail on the plans. Changes were made to just about every square meter. Like a true professional Wilhelm said, on my enquiry if he received the mail, that he got the mail, and that he might even read it at some stage!

Saturday was our follow up meeting. With his usual smile he listened attentively to our lamentations. On Sunday evening, as we were about to leave for our second week of Ethics classes, he handed the second set of plans to me, this time hand drawn. This time the response is great. We still need a few changes to it, but it was already closer to our ideal.

An added problem so far is that it is difficult to envisage the results as we do not have any idea of aesthetics so far. We do not really know even what style he has in mind. That would most likely be another struggle waiting to be fought. So far we are still very excited.

The saga continues.

Artist & Traveller