I am currently working with an organisation in Lilongwe – Malawi. I have spent most of the time working but yesterday I took a walk around. Just over 20 years ago my wife and I came here with bicycles and rode around the country. We had so much to learn about travelling like that. But we had a real adventure. We spent the first weekend camping at the Lilongwe Country Club. Yesterday I went back to the country club. It is o beautiful, I just wanted to sit and do a painting. I have a little Windsor Newton kit with two horse hair ink brushes, which I have cut off to fit into the bag. It was great just to sit in the afternoon sun listening to the crickets and the birds. When I got out my kit I saw that I had not brought any watercolour paper. But I had a photocopy of a consulting text which had one open page behind the title page. So I used that. It was a bit fragile when wet, but felt a bit like Arches hot pressed. This is what I did:
This is the cricket pavilion at the club (not to be confused with the insects I mentioned earlier). And as I sat I reflected on our cycle trip and our journey since then. I like to be alone like this. In my work I am prone to interaction fatigue. But I would also like to have had Aura with me, and my children. So this picture is for Aura.
The next posting in this series from Malawi is a posting of my work on the way down to the Shire River.
Leave A Comment