Author Archives: patrickhedges

Cool Kid from Langa

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On my recent trip to Africa, I was in a township called Langa, a sattelite township of Cape Town where workers travel many miles for work. They live in very squalid conditions and to the outsider, there seems little hope. The guy who showed us round was very intelligent and eloquent and didn’t think much of the government so we asked him if he would ever go into politics as he would do well. He said something very interesting – “No, I see all these good guys going into politics and so many of them become corrupt, I don’t want such money and power to change me”. He chose to live in Langa because of its sense of community which leads me to believe that my idea of a lack of hope is based on my own western affluent ideas and therefore I should rethink.

There were many kids around but this one in particular followed me at a distance. He was too cool to come up and speak and when I tried to get close to him, he moved away. I assume the sunglasses were a gift from some other tourist, they were so scratched I doubt he would be able to see properly out of them, but he sure looked the part. Obviously I can’t help but wonder how he goes as he grows up. He seemed to be about eight years old.

8″ x 10″
Cool Kid from Langa

Red-Billed Hornbill in scratchboard

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On my recent trip to Africa I saw many of these spectacular birds and took hundreds of photos of them (to go with the thousands of other photos I took). They would be out in the wild but also around the campsites of Namibia picking up the trash like all good scavengers (at least they didn’t invade the tents like the jackals did).

In this case I wanted to create a real sense of depth to my image so I used a variety of tools including sandpaper, fibre glass brush, scalpel, tungsten scribe, pen, coloured pencil (black) and diluted Indian ink, focusing everything into the middle where the actual bird is. I contemplated colouring it but since they don’t have a great deal of colour other than the red beak I decided against it as I kind of like the black and white look. It’s 8″ x 10″ and I’ve done an animated ‘gif’ to show the process through a few of the stages. I’m also showing a couple of close ups.

Here’s the ‘gif’ showing the process. If it’s not moving for you, just click it and it should.

“Hope for Africa”, a scratchboard portrait

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Following along with my series of portraits from the school in Spitzkoppe in Namibia, I have my latest scratchboard of a gorgeous girl which I’ve titled “Hope for Africa”.

Firstly, what’s so special about Spitzkoppe? The tiny town is named after the rock under which it sits. We camped under the stars and woke up to this view

How magnificent is that!!!

Ok, to work. I’ve included a gif (an animation with a series of images rotating through) to show the different stages of the portrait, and I’ve also included some closeups to show the ‘feathering’ technique I’ve used. This technique involves scratching parallel lines, and then another set over them at a slightly different angle, and then more and more, each set at only a slightly different angle. This differs from ‘cross-hatching’ where your lines are often at 90° to each other. An example of feathering is shown below.

Now to the portrait itself

The gif which shows the work in progress

And some closeups

So if this is the first time you’ve seen scratchboard, below is a selection of the tools I use. I have described most of them elsewhere but I’ve only used two of them in this portrait. I’ve put the scalpel blade (extreme right) into the yellow handle for all of the ‘feathering’ as this blade can produce very fine lines and I’ve done the hair very quickly with the brass bristled brush (second from right).

I hope this has been of some use to someone out there.

Spitzkoppe Namibia, a great supply for art

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This was a boy from a school in the tiny isolated village of Spitzkoppe in northren Namibia, south western Africa. I took photos of lots of kids that day and they are all so exuberant and fun. The girls all pose for you in ‘model’ poses and the boys all do some kind of ‘gangsta’ pose. This kid is no different, doing his version of the ‘thumbs up’ but with finger extended.

I’ve done this one in my ‘squiggly’ style

This is the third kid from the same school that I’ve done pieces of after the following scratchboard and oil pieces

Not so aggressive

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Swans are known for being aggressive towards their own kind, other birds and also us humans. In fact, one in England, a ‘mute swan’, once bit me in my – ahem – “you know what” area and wouldn’t let go. Ouch!! Glad no one got a photo!!

I have a new scratchboard out of an Australian Black Swan coming right up to the viewer. It certainly looks like the viewer should beat a hasty retreat, but in reality, this was a very inquisitive and tame swan just checking my camera out. In fact, black swans are reputed to be even more agressive than mute swans and escaped ones in England are breeding and ousting mute swans from some areas. This one was on the banks of the River Torrens in Adelaide so at least it was where it should be. It and all the ones around were quite tame.